Feelings: Why do we have them after all?

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Why and what do we feel? Why do feelings exist? If feelings are unstable and relatively unreliable, how do they help us at all? Why do we have them at all?

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions (well, technically, they are just one question and I don’t have an answer to that question). But I have some thoughts.

Imagine that all we have is the mind and the observable facts. Everyone learns the same things and sees them the same. We go to school, learn facts and done. We experience something, learn it, done. Easy.

But then, what would make any of us unique? Who would produce stories and movies? Would art exist? Would even scientific debates exist (well, here, I believe that science is not really purely objective. It depends on the person who interprets facts)? Would friendship exist? Friendship is valuable when the friend can provide you with a new perspective and can broaden your horizon. If everyone was the same, the friend would know you all over and there would be nothing to discover about each other nor to improve. The only improvement would be based on who knew more facts. Straight, bland, linear.

This sounds boring.

Feelings spice us up. They excite us. They motivate us.

But feelings also mess us up. They are not always understandable. We cannot see them. They are changeable. They are not always reliable. The give us the fear of the unknown. They make us feel insecure.

Will there be a day when we understand them better so we can avoid the negative effects? Maybe.

If that happens, maybe they will open up things that we never realize for us. Unknown, unseen dimensions.

Do we need this to happen? I am not sure. Humans usually have the craving to discover things beyond what is seen. This gives us curiosity. Maybe, we really need this to happen.

Will that mess us up too? Probably. We will face a new fear of the unknown.  We will feel insecure.

But it might be one of the steps towards understanding ourselves and the universe better.

In a nutshell, feelings exist and they are here to help us improve. But they cannot do so until we understand them better. For now, they mess us up as much as they help us. Hopefully in the future, they will mess less and improve more.