Part of a discussion about emotions…
“Many people, associate emotions with sadness, stress and tears. I’m not sure why this is? As a society we tend to treat our ‘everyday or base state’ (hopefully mild happiness or contentment) as neutral/emotionless and extreme states of emotion as ‘being emotional’. I guess that sorrow/sadness (seen as undesirable, negative and dysfunctional and therefore to be feared) is the most dramatic change from the base emotional state so is the most noticeable, whereas a greater happiness is accepted as just an increase in ‘base state happiness and contentment’. We (society) view emotions in a very linear fashion with sadness one end and happiness the other, it’s programmed into us that sorrow/sadness is negative and happiness is positive, and that we must constantly strive to move away from sadness towards happiness, and that any retrograde step is to be feared, avoided and worked against. We also live in a ‘rational society’ that like to think that emotions can be controlled and subjugated by reason and rationality. Failure to ‘keep your emotions under control’ or ‘letting your emotions get the better of you’ are seen as signs of extreme weakness of character and mental capacity, society tells us that in our modern age such behaviour is undesirable, and dangerous. We must beat primal emotions down with the might of our reason. The truth, of course, is a lot more complicated. ‘Emotions’ covers many ‘states’ not just happiness and sorrow; some are desirable, some undesirable, but all of them are vital and equally important. We are creatures of emotion. Our every moment of life is an expression of emotion. We flicker between States of emotion all of the time without registering it in our conscious minds. Emotions are the expression of our subconscious, they are part of what drives our every action, intuition, decision making and survival skills. Emotions, in their varied forms, are a major and vital part of who we are. On the qabalistic tree of life emotions are part of the seventh sephiroth (Netzach) which places them ‘higher’ than rationality and logic (Hod) and closer to Tiphareth, the point of harmony in the middle pillar, and ultimately closer to Kether.”
A Druid in the Aeon of the Child 