Wow seriously enjoyed reading all your responses, what a thread! 🥰 I guess answering your questions says a lot about oneself, different experiences and it sums up how we react and interact differently. For me I would say GRIEF, specially losing someone is my strongest emotion, no matter time passes, as if a piece of your heart gone missing forever. Most of other emotions somehow can be altered, modified, understood but grief neither time nor other feelings can take away…
Bumping this to say Thank you for all of the messages and support. While my story is not unique, it is definitely heartfelt.
The refusal to admit you were wrong. This leads people on a destructive path where they compound the error time after time.
I would say that anger or rage are the fastest, and so produce the most powerful responses in the moment.
Long term, my answer would be "love of parents for their children". That's always more powerful.
@WriterGF: Unless I'm miscounting, I think that makes four votes for willful ignorance!
@WriterGF correction nice insight
Divorcing the ex was the best decision I ever made in my life lmao...imagine if I went on emotions I'd be stuck wondering should I or shouldn't I 🤣🤣🤣🤣
My vote is for grief and courage.
If you all have not seen the book Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown, look into it. It is an amazing book on human emotions.
https://brenebrown.com/book/atlas-of-the-heart/
Shame might be the most powerful villain of negative emotions and it has a whole army of powerful sidekicks: fear, regret, hatred, disgust, isolation, and despair to name a few.
Shame lives like a parasite in the dark recesses of the heart. It taints every good memory and attempts to sabotage every attempt at healing and progress.
Shame loses to love though. Love shows up in the fiercest battles of the heart with its own sidekicks: kindness, compassion, forgiveness, courage, service, and sacrifice.
Even though we can feel its powerful effects, I think love is a decision more than an emotion. It's a choice made by the author and often takes a co-author to help love win.
Thank you for sharing @JohnR1972. The conflict of heros and villains makes a beautiful metaphor for the battle over the heart.
Well said @CactusHuggerTim
@CactusHuggerTim Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this subject. I had never framed it as heros and villains but I love the analogy.
Where’s Love? Or maybe I missed it here? The deepest most passionate love. Without the most intense feelings of love, will you have the intensity of some of the other emotions you’ve all named? Rage, jealousy & envy, lust, joy, delirious happiness, grief, devastation, regret, loss, need, hope and so on. For me, without intense love and passion (for someone or something that is what you live for) then it’s all just Beige.
@CactusHuggerTim Shame serves its purpose too. If a person burns down a building, or a kid kicks another kid in the stomach (not in self-defense) shame definitely has its place.
Mother Earth IS the definition of Love in my book. And if you go out into her vastness, she will not have a basket of berries sweetly picked, ready and waiting for you, nor a lamb roasting over a fire. She will force and compel you to go out and find it. And when you do, she will throw you nasty weather (created by her), poisonous plants to gamble with, mountain lions, bears and other hungry predators (also ALL created by her) you will have to learn quickly how to escape or defend yourself from. She also does not hold funerals, memorial services, works 24/7 around the clock (no breaks or vacation time, no retirement) and best of all she doesn’t complain. She just eats your body and makes it a part of herself.
Food for thought.
Instinct is the most powerful human “emotion” by a landslide and IMO the direct opposite of willful ignorance. What guides yours? 🤔
Also, does Mother Earths brutality make her less evolved than humankind? Or vice versa?
Regret
Point for "willful ignorance"—saying you 100% agree with a thing, then doing a 180 before the day is over, apparently without noticing you've 100% contradicted yourself.
WriterGF [The most powerful emotion/decision is] the refusal to admit you were wrong. This leads people on a destructive path where they compound the error time after time.
tinc @ WriterGF 100% agree.
tinc Instinct is the most powerful human “emotion” by a landslide and IMO the direct opposite of willful ignorance.
If nothing else, deliberately ignoring things you'd rather not know is obviously common!
That said, my partner recently argued that willful ignorance itself stems from fear: the fear of being wrong, the fear of knowing something you're not meant to know, the fear of something you can't handle knowing....
@GoodRightHook had a solid point.
@DaringSprinter Fear is a useful tool in cultivating stronger instincts. Ie: running from dangerous situations, reacting in self defense etc.
Fear only becomes toxic when an entire lifestyle is built up around it, and it begins to dictate every choice and action someone makes.
@tinc: Agreed. It wouldn't be all that powerful an emotion if it were merely negative, would it? No, fear is definitely powerful in both negative and positive ways.
I asked a friend which was the greater problem - ignorance or apathy. He replied, “I don’t know and I don’t care.”