So recently in my studies, I was posed the question "To what extent do our emotions reside in the realm of private knowledge, in the sense verified by others" To be honest, I was rather unsure how to tackle this massive unknown. I've been looking a lot at both emotion and reason as of late and pondering which of the two govern my life (OVER EMOTIONALS ANONYMOUS!). But this question really had me stumped.
I mean first of all how the hell do we know what we are feeling. How do I know that I'm happy? Is it because I'm smiling? Or because I just kinda get that good feeling, I just know? This was starting to really bug me.
However after a long chat with a friend, i realised that often the problem is not that we need our emotions to be verified by others to be real, but rather we need them to be verified so we can admit them to ourselves. I think so often we are afraid of feeling things. So afraid to admit we might be in love with someone, or afraid to actually tell someone that we're really not feeling that great recently, and are really struggling with all the crap life can throw our way. I think it takes a true friend to help us realise how we feel. And not how we want to feel. I think this is the only way to cope with our emotions, by acknowledging them. In John Green's novel Looking for Alaska the main character Pudge states that "It always shocked me when I realised I wasn't the only person in the world that felt such strange and awful things" I think what made this resonate with me was that I really do believe one of our biggest flaw as humans is thinking that we are the only ones who suffer, thinking "No one else understands me". The truth is, as humans we all feel emotions from time to time. So my answer to the impossible question?
It is our own minds, that tell us how we want to feel, but it takes true courage to reveal the truth within our hearts. In this way, and to some extent, others can help to verify our emotions.
Over and out.
Kate
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