Love, fear, and anger

I believe there are only three basic emotions, or innate propelling forces, in human beings: love, fear, and anger.

I’m sure someone well qualified to make such pronouncements has come up with this formulation, but what I see in my lazy Wikipedia research are examples of how psychologists have made us a lot more complicated than we may be. That page contains a whole lot of semantics. We have worked up an extensive vocabulary to describe the nuances of our feelings, which do exist. These dozens of words describe how we feel, how we respond. But they don’t help us know how to live.

I love semantic precision. But sometimes definitions need to be stretched rather than narrowed in order to give a different, helpful perspective.

A broad definition of love might be the drive to open out and connect. Under that we can include affection, desire, longing, and compassion, for sure. But also joy and delight, enthusiasm, excitement, elation, and zest. And quieter pleasure, pride, and optimism, as well as rapture and surprise, which spark us to make those connections and open us up. Hope—well, she is love’s patient and enduring sister.

Fear is the opposite of love—the pull back, the closing off, the flight from connection. Horror, alarm, and panic for sure. And in milder form, anxiety, worry, and tension. But also embarrassment and insecurity, guilt and shame, and all forms of the impulse to hide, flee, and separate.

Note: I’m not making value judgments here. Just trying to say what’s real.

That leaves anger for everything else. Can I really manage to squeeze all the rest of our feelings and drives into that category? Here goes. Anger is refusal. Anger sets us in opposition. Rage, irritation, frustration, annoyance (it’s a matter of degree). Likewise, hate, dislike, and resentment. The protective impulse is a form of anger. And I believe sadness and agony, depression, despair, and sorrow represent passive refusals—I suppose that’s an oxymoron but my system isn’t perfect. I just sense there’s a connection, that sadness is not a basic emotion but secondary.

Am I wrong? Argue with me!

More about what this (over)simplification means and how it might be helpful in other posts.