Stories of Emotional Granularity Jonathan Cook

Sehnsucht begins as a misty sort of longing for something at the edge of awareness, but once we reach the object of our sehnsucht, the experience can be mindblowing.

This episode of the podcast is about giving credit where credit is due. Who are the people working on documenting emotional granularity?

If we can perceive the complexity of happiness, then we also can grasp the uncertainty with which happiness is obtained. If we can see that happy people aren’t happy because they’re good, and unhappy people aren’t unhappy because they’re bad, we might be able to summon more compassion for people in moments of unhappiness, and more humility when we happen to find ourselves in a moment of happiness.

We celebrate winter holidays in the way that we populate our Instagram feeds, showing only the warm, bright, and jolly sides of ourselves, and anyone who displays an emotion that is less than cheery is castigated as a grinch or a scrooge. In contrast to these expectations, I am beginning this new season of Stories of Emotional Granularity with an exploration of anxiety.

To meaningfully discuss the feeling of being burned out, it is necessary for us to acknowledge that often, our lives aren’t as lovely and under control as we often like to pretend. Burnout happens when we can no longer maintain the façade of life as it’s supposed to be, and the image we project for others to see falters.

Sadness is one of the most common and familiar of emotions, but it's certainly not basic. Sadness has many emotional associates, and hides itself in plain sight in the guise of defensive anger, protecting our vulnerabilities. What if we were to live a life without sadness?