Ecstasy

Yes, ecstasy is a drug, that’s not what we’re talking about today, sorry. Ecstasy is defined as an emotion meaning immense happiness or joyful excitement, not just a drug. In this writing I’ll tell you about Plutchik's wheel, and moving from serenity to ecstasy, the opposite of the ladder’s emotions, sadness and grief.

Plutchik's wheel of emotions (picture at the bottom of the page) is a three dimensional model(picture flattens it to two dimensions) used to represent what Robert Plutchik said were the eight core emotions, with complex emotions between them. These eight emotions being admiration, terror, amazement, grief, loathing, vigilance, and ecstasy. The complex solutions are between the 'leaves' of the diagram. The way the diagram is set up says that the emotions on the outside are the least powerful, and gain strength as they get closer the middle. Meaning acceptance is a lesser form of trust and trust is a lesser form of admiration, which is the most powerful of the three. This means that serenity is the first form of the "happiness" leaf. This is where serenity turns to ecstasy. You need to be serene before you can be ecstatic. Serenity is the state of being peaceful, calm, or untroubled. You need to achieve this before you can achieve ecstasy. You will not go from rage to joy in seconds. If you can take your rage, which lasts no more than 90 seconds before needing to be refilled, you can turn it into serenity, add some activation energy to turn it into joy, and add even more energy to get to the goal of ecstatic. Maybe you don't want to be ecstatic, but why not strive to be serene, or joyful? They are wonderful feeling emotions, and it's not hard to achieve them, but you cannot go far if you don't take the first step, and may fall if you try to skip a step. Because of this, go from serenity to joy to ecstasy. However, this wheel also says that the emotions that are directly across from each other are opposite emotions; meaning pensiveness, sadness, and grief, are respectively the opposite emotions of serenity, joy, and ecstasy. As I said previously serenity, joy, and ecstasy are wonderful feeling emotions, but that the end of the day they are not the only emotions. I do not say 'they are unfortunately not..." because it's not unfortunate. First off, what is happiness if there's no sadness? Nothing. Second, every single emotion has its purpose. pensiveness will help you reflect, sadness will help you relieve stress through tears, and grief will let you continue your life without long term sadness, also known as depression. Every emotion, happiness, sadness, anger, trust, fear, surprise, boredom, anticipation. All of them serve a purpose, don't be afraid of your emotions, it's just your body trying to tell you what it needs.

That’s all folks. Throw back to loony toons. Now that everything has been said I hope that you understand a little about Plutchik's wheel of emotions, the necessity of serenity to ecstasy, and the importance of sadness. Thanks for reading, have an amazing week, and peace.

Original

#emotions