EMOTIONS

There are only two emotions – love and fear. All the others we feel are built around those two central aspects. If we feel compassionate, kind, gentle, supportive, caring, empathic, humorous, joyful, these emotions are all based upon love. Wanting what is best for someone, helping an elderly lady across the road or a friend dismantle his motorbike, these are actions based upon love.

Think about all the different kinds of love. There’s parental love, filial love, sisterly/brotherly love, love of nature and animals, love of good food and wine, love for mankind, sexual love, and platonic love and so on.

Fear is the basis for what we regard as the “darker” emotions – anger, jealousy, hatred, self-righteousness, envy, selfishness, superiority, inferiority, and so on. Violence comes from fear, as do the feelings that drive it. Sarcasm comes from fear. Putting others down is fear-based. If we were able to get under the skin of these feelings, we would find fear based upon early or even primitive stuff. Some of the fears will be personal to ourselves, some will be archetypal. – Jonny Chuter