Hidden Depths of Human Experience and Emotions

Emotions are at the core of the vivid scenes that compose our stories. They colour our days with joy, sorrow, anger, and everything in between. How much have you ever paused to consider the shades beneath the vividness? What about the subtler hues that often go unnoticed? Emotions, whether towering mountains or gentle breezes, leave their mark on us. Some emotions are rooted in our primal needs while others seem to emanate from a place beyond our immediate concerns. These are the emotions that nudge us when we’re quiet, lost in thought, and they carry an air of timelessness, as though predating our existence. Life is a journey through emotional landscapes, exploring the big and the small, the loud and the soft.

Big emotions are like thunderstorms, shaking the earth and demanding attention. They are big because they need to be; our survival often depends on their urgency. Fear is a primal response that jolts us into action when faced with danger. Joy can be an exhilarating rush that reinforces behaviours crucial for our well-being. These emotions are powerful tools, honed for needs of survival. They are loud because they must be heard over the din of life’s less critical challenges. So there’s a trade-off here where intensity is designed to drown out subtler mental operations. The wisdom in these moments is often overshadowed by the sheer force of the emotions of other things happening, often not the distractions but the primary events.

Consider the example of a parent protecting their child. The surge of protective anger is immense, a primal response designed to ensure safety. Yet, within that storm, there’s a quieter voice, of loving concern in considerations, that guides thoughts and actions with nuance and care. Now with smaller emotions often going unnoticed, we find a peculiar non-focus on the internal developments. These feelings linger only in the quiet moments, offering the space for insights that are overlooked otherwise. They seem to come from a higher plane, above and beyond our pettiness.

These quiet emotions are like the stars in the night sky, which are impossible to see in the day’s brilliance. Still the stars guided us through the darkness, the nightliness, as the small emotions, typically imperceptible, through the dark moments. They offer wisdom nuanced and protective, a compass pointing to spiritual growth. Take, for instance, the emotion of contentment in perhaps the calm of a baby’s gentle coo as she falls asleep on your shoulder. It’s soft, almost unassuming, yet it carries a depth of satisfaction that big emotions often cannot match and cannot even come close to comparing to. Contentment teaches us to find peace in simplicity, to appreciate what we have rather than constantly chasing more.

Life is often a dance between the big and the small emotions. The key is in finding balance, as always, listening to both the thunderstorms and the silence, allowing each to inform the other without letting one overwhelm the other. It is important here to point out the natural bias against the quiet again, however, and so this would need to be emphasised for the majority of people to bring such balance. Mental health therapy often revolves around this balancing act. It’s about navigating the tumultuous seas of big emotions to discover the calmer waters beneath, where we can find greater wisdom. By addressing the loud voices, we uncover the still quieter ones, gaining a richer understanding of ourselves and our experiences. Some cut off from this have been straining for so long to hear that once finally away from the storm, so much can blossom. This has been allowed to happen most primarily through prayer historically, but also in meditation or silence.

It’s also true that different emotions activate different parts of the brain. Big emotions, like fear or joy, appear to excite areas of the nervous system more in common with primitive animals, while smaller emotions, such as contentment or curiosity, faith or wonder, alight areas of the nervous systems found only in humans and within the higher cognitive functions, as though the tendrils of development had always reached out toward these silent emotions. Philosophers and philosophical writers from the beginning have explored the nature of emotions, highlighting the contrast between primal responses and deeper, more reflective experiences. It is as though consciousness itself exists so that it can look back at and re-align the subconscious.