Emotions

[clyde]

In this thread, folks can name an emotion and when they have felt it. Then other folks can share when they felt that emotion as well. I will demonstrate with the next two posts: 

[clyde]

fascinated

[clyde]

Just now, clyde said:

fascinated

I'm thinking of fascinated as kinda being anchored by a string to an object of interest, returninh to it again and again as a reference. 

Right now, I'm fascinated by the idea of seeing convenience as an inherently good thing. I'm thinking about how much thought and effort and emotion I put into things being convenient for me. I fear that things will one day not be convenient. 

One place I notice this easily is when I'm generating ai images over and over again for an hour or more. It is like the generation is spoiling me with convenience. I get intoxicated. This could also apply to something like spending a night out on the town purchasing services and goods. The convenience is intoxicating and gives me a false sense of the world and my engagement in it. I'm fascinated by this at the moment.

[clyde]

Delighted.

 

I'm thinking of being delighted as a endearing and somewhat whimsical look at gratitudes for local, present connections with others. Like, I'm delighted that I had coffee (decaf) with two friends today and that we talked about our views on death.

[Zeusthecat]

Inspiration: the most mysterious and powerful emotion of them all. That feeling that rises up when you see someone risk everything to save someone else. Or the feeling I get when I see Samwise Gamgee carrying Frodo up Mt. Doom at the end of RoTK. I've been really exploring how to cultivate that emotion more in myself and others.

[clyde]

Inspiration: I've started thinking of inspiration as a distraction. I get inspired when I'm high on caffeine; or when I am trying to focus on one thing for a long period of time, inspiration regarding something completely unrelated will show up and encourage me to abandon the object I'm trying to focus on. 

That's how inspiration shows up for me in smaller chunks of time, but I do feel elevated by demonstrations of capability beyond my current capacity. I've been inspired by demonstrations of techniques such as:

• non-violent communication as described by Marshall Rosenberg
• the cultivation of compassion and non-judgment that I've seen in Buddhist monastics
• I had an interesting session with my therapist which was derivative of Internal Family Systems; I found that experience inspiring.
• demonstrations of motivational interviewing
• the Asist model of suicide intervention has demonstrated well for me. 

All of these are contextual and I have been located in the contexts where they were applied in a way that gave me a sense that there was something of use that I could learn to be more capable in the ways I want to be capable. 

[Zeusthecat]

That's an interesting perspective Clyde. To give an example of what exactly about inspiration has piqued my interest so much, I'll admit something super embarrassing.

 

Back in 2016 I watched the anime Your Lie In April. To this day I can't explain why, but something about the way that story was presented turned on that feeling of inspiration to such a strong degree that I proceeded to spend the next 5 years straight playing piano for 1-hour per day. I was garbage at first, but by the end of that 5-year stretch, I had memorized 37 songs and had gotten somewhat decent for someone just teaching myself and recalling music techniques I learned as a child (I did play saxophone for many years growing up so I wasn't completely new to music). That moment of inspiration somehow resulted in me maintaining that level of discipline for 5 years and as I've examined what was at the core of that emotion more closely, I've realized that what I was really after was setting off the same feeling that was set off in me in others. There is something immensely appealing about the thought of being able to create or do something that another person sees and experiences the kindling of that flame.

 

Another big one for me has been Jacob Collier's audience choirs. I can't watch those without tears starting to form. It is like getting the briefest glimpse into what humanity could actually be.

[Zeusthecat]

Also, so sorry if I didn't fully engage with your comment and went right into "hey pay attention to me" mode. I really like your examples and especially this piece: "but I do feel elevated by demonstrations of capability beyond my current capacity". That is a very poignant observation that makes me ponder the nature of inspiration and our perception of what we are and aren't capable of. In my experience, that phenomenon feels less like learning something new and more like realizing I know something that I didn't know I knew.