emotions
we speak of them
as if they reside
in some spectral realm,
ethereal yet tangibly felt
intensity of joy
the ache of sorrow
the fizz of excitement
the lump of fear
each has its hue,
its texture, its tone.
Imagine for a moment the world as a great stage. The people around you, actors and actresses in their own right, don costumes of social norms, rehearse lines handed down by tradition or penned by contemporary wit.
the script?
it’s never quite fixed
It shifts, almost as if rewritten by an invisible hand in real-time. But what do you gain from this theatre if you are only comfortable reciting lines of a single emotion? As if trapped in a black and white film where the grayscale replaces the vividness of technicolor experience.
Widen the aperture, and you find a panoramic landscape of emotional hues, each a distinct flavour on the tongue of the soul.
The setting sun doesn’t just sink—it weeps into the arms of the horizon, its orange tears mingling with the inky blues of approaching night.
The laughter of a child isn’t a mere sound; it’s the spirited dance of innocence on a stage as yet unmarred by the heaviness of jaded scripts. Even sorrow, that somber note that vibrates low and deep in the chest, has its own beauty, its own solemn grace. Within its shadowy folds lie the seeds of empathy, the roots of understanding that weave beneath the soil of the human experience.
To stifle any emotion is to deny yourself access to the library of human sentiment. It’s akin to walking through a garden and acknowledging only the roses, while disregarding the mysterious allure of the orchids or the humble wisdom of the daisies. “All feelings are only looking for a place to show up.", poet David Whyte suggests. Indeed, they ask for acknowledgment, for a theatre where they can enact their intricate roles.
As we open ourselves to this plethora of feelings, we also sharpen our eyes to the world’s textures and nuances. You begin to see the world not just as a globe spinning in a yawning universe, but as a tapestry woven with threads of multiple hues—each representing a unique emotion, each essential in forming the pattern of the whole. It’s like trading a monochrome lens for a kaleidoscopic one, each turn revealing a new pattern, a new perspective.
What’s more, in embracing a fuller range of emotions, you become an acute receiver of the world’s subtleties. You hear the unspoken words hanging in a pause, sense the tension in a room like the electric charge before a storm, see the hidden sadness in a smile. You understand, more deeply, the unsaid.
In closing, allow me this: to limit oneself to a handful of emotions is to walk through life with a narrowed gaze. It’s to read only the opening chapter of a book, to taste only the appetiser in a seven-course meal. So, if the spectrum of human emotions is a grand symphony, shouldn’t we aspire to hear it all—from the softest violin whisper to the boldest brass proclamation? And as you contemplate the full orchestra of your emotional life, ask yourself: What emotion have I yet to truly hear, and what new world will it reveal to me?
