0.7 A conversation about measuring emotion and its conclusion: mood  (Page 16/26)

In addition to helpless, powerless, afraid and worried; lonely, embarrassed and anxious are also are part of this mood. I don't know if fear is necessary for this typical emotional state to occur. Fear is a powerful emotion, someone could be anxious without being afraid, or powerless or helpless or the others for that reason. Someone can experience anxiety and not be troubled by it. Or someone could experience a lot of fear and it could not cause them to be anxious in a similar manner. Though it could certainly seem that these emotions would all go together, I mean, if you have a lot of anxiety then it would make sense that you might be at least a little bit afraid, worried, lonely, embarrassed, powerless and helpless. It would seem to make sense that any one of those would rarely occur just by itself.

Self-confidence (or lack of it) is similar to being embarrassed. Though lack of self confidence seems like a minor emotion compared to the other emotions mentioned that comprise this mood. In fact, it seems like someone would be experiencing a lot of emotion if they were experiencing the emotion of fear and embarrassment at the same time. It doesn't seem possible for someone to experience all of those emotions full-force (the maximum each could be experienced) at the same time, that would simply be too much emotion for one to experience. Powerless seems like an easy emotion to experience since that emotion doesn't have a lot of force to it, it is more like experiencing that you don't have any power. Helplessness is similar to that, but loneliness is a little bit different in that there seems to be some tangible emotion involved. When someone is lonely, they have real feelings of loneliness, when someone is helpless, however, it doesn't seem like that would be a powerful emotion because it seems more like just being out of it, instead of feeling powerfully.

Powerless is similar to helpless. And worried and lonely are also similarly weak emotions, unless the worry and loneliness leads to anxiety, then those two by themselves wouldn't seem to me to be very strong because they are such weak emotions. Similarly, embarrassment and all of those are just similar to lack of self confidence, which isn't a strong emotion at all. Unless it leads to anxiety or fear (or occurs simultaneously), the other emotions in this mood group don't seem like they would be powerful by themselves. I suppose I am saying that the only strongly negative emotions are ones like anxiety, fear and pain. The other emotions by themselves don't seem to have pain as a part of them, they could be causing the emotion pain - but they are much more independent of it than something like anxiety.

Negative thoughts is an obvious kind of mood. Doubt, envy, guilt, frustration and shame are just thoughts that you wouldn't think help you in any way. I wouldn't think that doubt is that bad or painful most of the time, considering that there might be some doubt with every thought you have and that could be perfectly normal. Negative thoughts just seem to me like they don't generate any significant amount of real pain. Envy and guilt I would say are similar, they are probably harmless most of the time (though i'm not saying that they couldn't be fairly bad), I mean how big of a deal could it be for someone to be jealous of someone else, it isn't really going to hurt them over the long run. Frustration and shame seem more negative because those could be rather painful, while something like doubt probably isn't going to generate any pain. I think someone could be in a mood of having negative thoughts, all types of negative thoughts. I would think that such a mood could last from a few minutes to a few hours. I couldn't really imagine someone having constant negative thoughts for days, though I suppose that is possible. I personally try to be as optimistic as possible so I feel better, but the reality of life is that there is a lot to be negative about so it is possible that people get very upset and have lots of negative thoughts, impacting their mood and emotions for a while. You might not notice if you are having such thoughts, these thoughts might be more unconscious in nature or just thoughts you are less aware you are having.