I used to be inspired by religious/spiritual books that pointed to a reality beyond everyday life. Now I’m inspired by scientific/worldly books about the life that surrounds each of us, right here, right now.
My new favorite book is The Opposite of Happiness: How Bad Feelings Make and Break Us by George Loewenstein. Lowenstein is noted for his work in behavioral economics. He says that to economists, he is too psychologically oriented, and to psychologists, he is too economically oriented.
Which is fine with me. I enjoy creative minds who aren’t confined to traditional boxes.
I’m just 47 pages into the book and am enjoying it. Lowenstein takes an evolutionary approach to negative emotions, since if they didn’t serve a purpose, it is unlikely that they would be so much a part of our human experience.
I bought the book after reading a description of it (can’t remember where) that mentioned how wanting to get rid of an unpleasant feeling is another unpleasant feeling. So this doesn’t get us moving in the direction of pleasantness. Lowenstein says on his second page:
As I will explain in the coming pages, many of the things people do to avoid suffering or find satisfaction — chasing ambitious goals, clinging to hope, suppressing painful thoughts, striving for control, protecting their pride — don’t just fail to deliver happiness; they often make our misery worse. This book is about why that happens. It’s about the miseries that evolution designed us to feel, and how our efforts to escape them so often sharpen the sting.
Evolution isn’t about knowing the truth about reality. Evolution isn’t about being happy. Though it really doesn’t make sene to say that evolution cares about anything, if we want to use the world “care” (and I do), evolution cares about an organism passing on its genes to the next generation.
Whatever makes that more likely, earns points in the great game of evolution. Whatever makes that less likely, has points taken away in the great game of evolution.
Even before Lowenstein begins talking about how this happens, he tells the reader that one of his goals is to lessen our guilt.
One of the book’s central arguments is that misery is inescapable. It’s not some malfunction or a bug in the system. It is the system. Evolution didn’t design us to be happy; it designed us to survive and reproduce — and, as it turns out, that design comes with a lot of built-in suffering. But even if we cannot escape misery, we can certainly better understand it. And as the saying goes, “to understand is to forgive.”
That phrase is usually meant to apply to others, but it can be applied to oneself as well. Maybe understanding why we are unavoidably miserable can at least help us to blame ourselves less — removing guilt (about being unhappy) from the already toxic stew of negative emotions that so many of us experience.
My wife and I mostly watch television separately, only coming together to see a program jointly in the late evening. The reason is that we like different kinds of shows. My taste runs toward thrillers, spying, dark dramas, that sort of thing. The common denominator is a lot of negative emotions in the characters: fear, distress, panic, anxiety, and so on.
Sure, there are positive emotions also: courage, bravery, dedication, satisfaction, and so on. It’s the interplay between the negative and the positive, the yin and yang, that captivates me. I’m not a fan of either unalloyed positivity (Hallmark Channel) or extreme negativity (horror shows).
Laurel and I watched every season of Ted Lasso together, since we both enjoyed it. I liked how an episode would bounce back and forth between emotions like hope and fear, joy and sorrow. Often I’d think, “this is going to turn out well,” because that’s how the plot of most shows of that type would handle the situation.
But with Ted Lasso, often a tragedy would turn an expected stream of happiness into a torrent of disappointment. Just like everyday life. Which made the series easy for me to identify with, since I’m on a continual rollercoaster of ups and downs, pleasures and pains, joys and sorrows.
This is perfectly normal. After describing what fear can feel like, Lowenstein writes:
The effect of such an emotion is not reducible to a single feeling, brain region, or physiological change. Emotions sweep through us, altering how we perceive the world, restructuring our memories, reshaping our judgments, and driving our actions. My takeaway from their article was that emotions don’t just influence us — they reprogram us.
When we’re in different emotional states, it’s almost as if we become different people — like the vengeful person I was the morning I received the errant email and the reflective one who wrote back later that evening.
As tormenting as these shifts can sometimes be, they are not signs that our emotional system is malfunctioning, but evidence that it is doing precisely what it was designed to do: help our early human ancestors survive long enough to pass on their genes.
…Most of the psychological stress we feel today isn’t caused by actual physical or social danger, Nesse points out, but by a system calibrated in our ancestral environment to err on the side of caution. From our evolved brain’s perspective, the cost of a false alarm — of feeling bad when nothing is wrong — is small.
The cost of missing a real threat could be fatal. The result is an emotional system built for vigilance, not peace of mind. Evolution, it seems, must be cruel to be kind.
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“Actually, there is no such thing as mind.” — Suzuki Roshi
So says someone who used their mind to claim “Actually, there is no such thing as mind.” That’s like me saying there’s no such thing as a MacBook Pro even though I’m typing this reply to your comment on a MacBook Pro. Sometimes, well, often, people can’t see the reality that is right in front of them. Sounds like Suzuki Roshi is one of those people.
“Actually, there is no such thing as mind.” – Suzuki Roshi. AI says: In Zen Buddhism, the statement points to the idea that a fixed, separate “mind” or “self” does not exist as an independent object.
Of course there is mind, but not ‘a’ mind; that is, a mind as a separate thing, an actual object. Mind, like self and consciousness are just names we give to mental functions. Unlike a brain, mind, self and consciousness cannot be found.
Personally, I tend to think that the mind is just information, information resulting from life’s experiences that the brain regurgitates when the situation demands – no self needed.
Negative emotions are a great flag, if we pay attention to them, if we digest them.
But this requires a calm mind, a mind that is still, to see these things rightly.
Otherwise people can convince you that you should feel bad, that you should feel ashamed, that you are wrong.
You might be wrong, but that’s for you to see, not for someone else to use as leverage.
And negative emotions, as a flag, when you own them, serves to trigger corrective action on your part, the only part you can control.
But if you don’t take responsibility for those feelings, then it just becomes blame, a grudge, and that becomes a ball and chain. Happiness is very difficult carrying around blame.
The problem with blame is that you can do nothing about those negative emotions that has any lasting happiness. Punching the other guy just makes you a violent person.
The perceived source of blame, the other guy, isn’t under your control. And so you may run away, but never escape those feelings, that grudge and that burden.
But YOU are indeed under your control, if you work to gain that control. Meditation can help with that. And YOU can change.
So, how best to use those negative feelings in a constructive way, that leads to positive feelings, and real freedom? That minimizes the negative while honoring it, while also building the positive? How best to digest those negative feelings?
First, accept what happened and your part in it without blaming anyone. See it dispassionately. Second acknowledge that change is needed to avoid that negative conflict again.
Then see what you can change. Not what you did wrong. There is no wrong, just old behavior and new behavior. Old behavior was part of an old system that involves a lot of other people. You are going to build a new system, free of the old system, but which includes every one of those people. You are going to bring them along just by changing yourself. What a superpower!
Understand that you are part of a system. So when your family member says “you should” that pressure may cause you to say nothing and comply.
That’s called mental blackmail. But it’s always out of love. It’s innocent. Helping children and manipulating them are sadly very intertwined because we all have our issues. As children grow, they help their parents grow too.
What you want to do is understand what you really want, what is being asked of you, and then you make a decision then, not regret later. You can say “Hang on give me day on this please”, and then consider and make your own decision “the benefit is worth the cost, worth the work, I’m not losing anything really, I’m gaining.” Or you can say “Nope. This doesn’t work for me. It doesn’t feel right. I don’t mind giving something up for something worthwhile, but I don’t see the outcome here. I don’t mind feeling uncomfortable, as in it’s new and work, because that’s OK. No, this feels wrong like I’m adding to something I don’t believe in.”
Then what to do with that?
Boundaries.
You don’t say “Auntie you are part of a cult.” Doing that you are throwing your Auntie away, whom you may love.
And you don’t say “Auntie I love you so yes let’s proceed. I want what you want me to want!”
You say “Thank you Auntie for bringing this up. I love you. And I’ve put thought into this, and made a decision for myself. This isn’t my cup of tea. But thank you again for mentioning it…”
As my dad taught me “We each need to make our own mistakes.”
“Auntie, you may be right, and I tried to see that, but I can’t. And I may be wrong. But as a friend once said “We all need to make our own mistakes” It’s all part of growth, right Auntie?”
You see. Now two things happen. 1. You still have a loving relationship with Auntie. She might be butt hurt for a few days, but you just keep reassuring her and setting that boundary and everything will be fine.
If Auntie creates a conflict, then or course, create some distance, but all with love and patience, and reassurance. Create whatever distance you need to, but that is all driven by Auntie’s inability to accept, not your inability to communicate, discuss, reassure and set your boundaries.
2. Auntie realizes that you are your own person. That her sense of right and wrong is for her, but each person must make up their own mind, and in order to maintain peace, we must accept that what is right for Auntie, which may be wrong for you, is in fact right for Auntie.
And so she begins to understand that what is right for Auntie isn’t right for you. What you are doing is right for you.
Now she is learning respect. Not because you blamed her. Because you respected her while also respecting yourself.
And that is all respect for the broader and very diverse reality of life. Of individuals. Which we all are. With individual responsibilties.
And now you are helping yourself, Auntie and everyone involved. You made your own decision, you owned it, no blame, no shame anywhere. And lot’s of love and reassurance and understanding. You try to understand why what Auntie is doing is right for Auntie, but calmly maintain your boundary.
You have a right to live as you choose and so does Auntie. And you both can find a way to live together, if you both work at it…You who set the boundary, will need to work harder then Auntie, who may not understand. Then you decide if it’s worth it. Generally, in loving relationships with friends and family, it is. The very challenge is where you grow.
Boundaries. Great power there.
And negative feelings can bring you there. And once boundaries are set well, no negative feelings. No grudges. Peace, happiness, sisterhood and brotherhood. Until the next opportunity to set your next boundary.
Get good at it. Mine the strength within yourself to be your own person. In harmony with the world. Through healthy boundaries. Meditation, and Master’s love can take you there, when you find a Master you really love.
Find someone or something you love more than yourself. That will become your north star, your ever fixed mark upon which to focus in this sea of churning priorities and misunderstandings.
Bring understanding to misunderstandings. Healthy boundaries are the path to that.
Then negative emotions have their place, as the guide to positive emotions.
Sure. Be a doormat and keep engaging with people who keep trying to recruit you into a “god in human form” worship devotional cult.
It is insulting and demeaning to downplay dealing with active RSSB members as a basic “boundary-setting” issue – as if the person is so dumb they cannot or did not say “no” ever.
Chances are, they did, repeatedly, over years or decades, to the point of coercive control, perhaps even emotional/verbal or even physical abuse, including life choices being made for you. The psychological toll of repeatedly setting boundaries towards people who have their own agenda (to get you into this “god in human form” worship devotional cult) is insane, exhausting and a full time job in itself.
You cannot “set boundaries” against coercive control attempts.
My thoughts and prayers to anyone going through this.
Anon
Each of us sees different things in the same situation and writings.and certainly everyone must make their own mistakes. I only suggest that we can learn.
As I wrote,
“If Auntie creates a conflict, then or course, create some distance, but all with love and patience, and reassurance. Create whatever distance you need to, but that is all driven by Auntie’s inability to accept, not your inability to communicate, discuss, reassure and set your boundaries.”
Creating distance actually minimizes conflict done dispassionately, with kindness, understanding and love.
If you do not like other people trying to get you to do what they want, why blame them for what is your responsibility?
Get yourself out of that system. That starts within you.
And under no condition is blame or demonizing the other person ever necessary. Indeed it ties you further and gives your emancipation.
Once you let go of blame you take the first step. Learn from blame, learn your lesson, then let go and move on.
Since you can only change yourself, I would suggest this is the greatest avenue for freedom, whereas indulging in blame and accusation, memorializing hatred, institutionalizing your grudge merely chains you to the very things you are trying to get free of. Your villains have won. You have handed them victory through you obsession with them. The strength of that obsession is measured in the difficulty you have in letting go.
They are still the focus of your essays and attention. Letting go, forgiving, these are indeed difficult and character building activities.
If you are really interested in helping exers, there are two avenues.
1. See above. Help yourself first. You will learn much that will be of actual help.
2. Find exers who have dealt with this, find out how and why. Why still carries a grudge? Why has actually moved past it? Who never ever spends two seconds in the past? Who honors every moment of their past as part abcd parcel of making them who they are today?
Who outgrew resentment? What they mastered is truly valuable!
What did they find? How are they living? What life have they made?
It will be easy to find exers who still can’t let go. They are here.
To find the other kind will take a little more work. But it’s time well spent.
Take a hard look at that. Again, what you learn will be of great help.
Overcoming self is the greatest victory and the most difficult challenge.
Be truly free of those things you complain about.
One day you will wear out anger and understand. Why not start today?
“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards”
Soren Kierkegaard
So look forward , not backwards.
If you really think you know the truth, then build your new life in that, and not a career of blame and looking back.
But if you must look back, do so to learn, as Kierjegaard write. Try to learn from the past, not destroy it. That can’t be done, Anon. It’s part of you now. Maybe the best part.
Anon
You wrote:
“You cannot “set boundaries” against coercive control attempts.”
That is precisely where you can and must. That’s what boundaries are for. But you have to build them. No one else can or will.
And if you haven’t, today is as good a day as any to start.
Negative emotions are a great flag, if we pay attention to them, if we digest them.
But this requires a calm mind, a mind that is still, to see these things rightly.
Otherwise people can convince you that you should feel bad, that you should feel ashamed, that you are wrong.
You might be wrong, but that’s for you to see, not for someone else to use as leverage.
And negative emotions, as a flag, when you own them, serves to trigger corrective action on your part, the only part you can control.
But if you don’t take responsibility for those feelings, then it just becomes blame, a grudge, and that becomes a ball and chain. Happiness is very difficult carrying around blame.
The problem with blame is that you can do nothing about those negative emotions that has any lasting happiness. Punching the other guy just makes you a violent person.
The perceived source of blame, the other guy, isn’t under your control. And so you may run away, but never escape those feelings, that grudge and that burden.
But YOU are indeed under your control, if you work to gain that control. Meditation can help with that. And YOU can change.
So, how best to use those negative feelings in a constructive way, that leads to positive feelings, and real freedom? That minimizes the negative while honoring it, while also building the positive? How best to digest those negative feelings?
First, accept what happened and your part in it without blaming anyone. See it dispassionately. Second acknowledge that change is needed to avoid that negative conflict again.
Then see what you can change. Not what you did wrong. There is no wrong, just old behavior and new behavior. Old behavior was part of an old system that involves a lot of other people. You are going to build a new system, free of the old system, but which includes every one of those people. You are going to bring them along just by changing yourself. What a superpower!
Understand that you are part of a system. So when your family member says “you should” that pressure may cause you to say nothing and comply.
That’s called mental blackmail. But it’s always out of love. It’s innocent. Helping children and manipulating them are sadly very intertwined because we all have our issues. As children grow, they help their parents grow too.
What you want to do is understand what you really want, what is being asked of you, and then you make a decision then, not regret later. You can say “Hang on give me day on this please”, and then consider and make your own decision “the benefit is worth the cost, worth the work, I’m not losing anything really, I’m gaining.” Or you can say “Nope. This doesn’t work for me. It doesn’t feel right. I don’t mind giving something up for something worthwhile, but I don’t see the outcome here. I don’t mind feeling uncomfortable, as in it’s new and work, because that’s OK. No, this feels wrong like I’m adding to something I don’t believe in.”
Then what to do with that?
Boundaries.
You don’t say “Auntie you are part of a cult.” Doing that you are throwing your Auntie away, whom you may love.
And you don’t say “Auntie I love you so yes let’s proceed. I want what you want me to want!”
You say “Thank you Auntie for bringing this up. I love you. And I’ve put thought into this, and made a decision for myself. This isn’t my cup of tea. But thank you again for mentioning it…”
As my dad taught me “We each need to make our own mistakes.”
“Auntie, you may be right, and I tried to see that, but I can’t. And I may be wrong. But as a friend once said “We all need to make our own mistakes” It’s all part of growth, right Auntie?”
You see. Now two things happen. 1. You still have a loving relationship with Auntie. She might be butt hurt for a few days, but you just keep reassuring her and setting that boundary and everything will be fine.
If Auntie creates a conflict, then or course, create some distance, but all with love and patience, and reassurance. Create whatever distance you need to, but that is all driven by Auntie’s inability to accept, not your inability to communicate, discuss, reassure and set your boundaries.
2. Auntie realizes that you are your own person. That her sense of right and wrong is for her, but each person must make up their own mind, and in order to maintain peace, we must accept that what is right for Auntie, which may be wrong for you, is in fact right for Auntie.
And so she begins to understand that what is right for Auntie isn’t right for you. What you are doing is right for you.
Now she is learning respect. Not because you blamed her. Because you respected her while also respecting yourself.
And that is all respect for the broader and very diverse reality of life. Of individuals. Which we all are. With individual responsibilties.
And now you are helping yourself, Auntie and everyone involved. You made your own decision, you owned it, no blame, no shame anywhere. And lot’s of love and reassurance and understanding. You try to understand why what Auntie is doing is right for Auntie, but calmly maintain your boundary.
You have a right to live as you choose and so does Auntie. And you both can find a way to live together, if you both work at it…You who set the boundary, will need to work harder then Auntie, who may not understand. Then you decide if it’s worth it. Generally, in loving relationships with friends and family, it is. The very challenge is where you grow.
Boundaries. Great power there.
And negative feelings can bring you there. And once boundaries are set well, no negative feelings. No grudges. Peace, happiness, sisterhood and brotherhood. Until the next opportunity to set your next boundary.
Get good at it. Mine the strength within yourself to be your own person. In harmony with the world. Through healthy boundaries. Meditation, and Master’s love can take you there, when you find a Master you really love.
Find someone or something you love more than yourself. That will become your north star, your ever fixed mark upon which to focus in this sea of churning priorities and misunderstandings.
Bring understanding to misunderstandings. Healthy boundaries are the path to that.
I genuinely believe this human is an example of RSSB brainwashing
@Anon
The reality is that humans attribute meaning and value to everything they deem fit … physical, mental, spiritual.. economic, political, religious, social, cultural.
Christianity is not the same for the pope, clergy, devotees etc etc.
The things you write about are all related to how Indian communities deal with shared values … religion is one of the major issues if not the greatest besides … money.
If there is an issue that threatens the family honor… they might even commit crimes
Family honor hardly exists in Europe…so nobody cares whether you are satsangi or not … unless …you anoy people with it
The things you write about do happen here too to some extent in all orthodox religious communities.
These orthodox groups tend to live together in small neighborhoods and villages and there the consequences of acting different from the common mores can be severe.
I do for example remember my parents in law .. they had an cottage in a small orthodox protestant village were tv was considered as an instrument of the devil …so if it was found out you had one …the local youth would haras you and throw bricks through the windows and more.
You know of the fights between Muslim and Hindu but we had an in a sense still have a war between different fractions of Christians…what was at stake on northern Ireland is peanuts compared to what we have had for centuries
Religion is a social cultural issue
Anon
The brain is a sponge. The mind is a sponge. We are all washed in something. You pick. Hatred or love?
Blue pill, you get to go back to your world of good and evil. You tie yourself even tighter to the mast of that stormy sea.
Red pill, you see the world isn’t what you thought. And you leave it behind for a better one.love is the path there. Love will carry you there. But once you choose it, you can never turn back. Nothing will ever hold the same allure as true Love.
But it isn’t a bowl of vanilla pudding.
I was wondering if Lowenstein was about to bring in that old evolution theory of brain regions being responsible for our emotions. You know, the triune brain theory of the reptilian brain, the mammalian brain and the human brain. My recent reading on emotions states that they are constructed – meaning that the brain constructs emotions from past experiences – they are made in the brain, not triggered.
Then I saw that Loewenstein wrote: “The effect of such an emotion is not reducible to a single feeling, brain region, or physiological change. Emotions sweep through us, altering how we perceive the world, restructuring our memories, reshaping our judgments, and driving our actions. My takeaway from their article was that emotions don’t just influence us — they reprogram us.”
That’s better. One is not then a slave to being genetically prone to anger, anxiety, disgust, fear, melancholy, etc.; emotions are made from how one reacted in past experience(s). With that pattern, if it is ‘fixed’ in the brain then it will be automatically be repeated as a situation arises that arouses anger. The good news is that perhaps in seeing that a different response works better, then the brain may be reprogrammed to act differently in the future.
This raises the question of why/how some people never learn, never feel fear, or always respond angrily. Studies into the amygdala, the organ said to be responsible for emotions like fear and anger, show that even lacking that organ, fear can occur. An interesting, on-going investigation.
Hi Ron
I like your take away from this.
This body is a bag of chemicals, and the brain reconstructs our identity and history moment by moment.
We do have biochemical reactions, and there are parts of the brain that generate more of what we call emotions, more of what we call thoughts, and that elusive high performing vigilance evidenced in extreme conditions (what was once simplistically labeled fight or flight) , and paradoxically, in deep meditation, when many of those other brain centers are turned off.
And wet know that different systems of the brain operate under different conditions.
Is kind an old kid’s electronics set. The same components are wired as parts of different configurations, like the different courses of a meal.
The fact that we construct so much that we label as feelings or facts, impressions and memories, and these are so much more sensitive to conditioning and experience than neurologist thought is a great hope. We can change and grow. We can imperfection and open up the awareness, the consciousness of experience stinky by changing what we attend to, and so, what we see in our environment. It is a practice.
Oops I apologize for all the typos above. New tablet.
Should read instead.
“And we know that different systems of the brain operate under different conditions.
It Is kind of like an old kid’s electronics set. The same components are wired as parts of different configurations: The buzzer, the doorbell, the intercom, the electric light, the motor, the generator, the pulley, all different configurations from the same box of parts and plug-in cables.
The same flour that makes the bread, the same flour that makes the cake. Ground course, it makes the bulgar breakfast. Ground super fine, the Croissant and the Filo for the delicious Baklava.
The fact that we construct so much that we label as feelings or facts, impressions and memories, and these are so much more sensitive to conditioning and experience than neurologists once thought is a great hope. We can change and grow.
We can become less imperfect and open up the awareness, the consciousness of experience simply by changing what we attend to, and so, what we see in our environment. It is a practice.
Anon,
There is a huge difference between the role of religion BEFORE and AFTER the two world wars in the west
Most wanted to go back to “business as usual ” back to the pre-war normal but not all and an anti-authory movement was started.
The Christian and Hebrew gods could not have prevented them from the disaster that was their fate.
Secularization started. Churches did whatever they could to keep the youth from running away. Organized the most silly things to keep them interested …in vain …the power flower movement found its inspiration in the east.
In the wake of that ant-autharian movement the society as a whole started to “please” all those that pointed with their fingers … labeling individuals an institutions as … AUTHORITARIAN.
that has for decades been the WEAPON TO demonishe everything they wanted to get rid if
That movement has little by little reached the under classes with all consequences…an uncontrollable society …a worthless society… worthless as it is no longer able to attribute WORTH, value to anything.
And lo an behold…what do we see??
The raise of populism, nationalism … but also the raise of a very militant Christian movement to restore the old pre-war values
Religion is an social cultural issue…people are reaping the sour fruits of an permissive society that could not cope with a minority of anti authoritarian intellectuals
If you do not agree blame the coffee brand