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Which emotion is the most satisfying to express for you and why?

S

SingSmileShine

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Anger. I love my outbursts, as much as I hate to admit that. I feel quite powerful when voicing my opinions, which are very moral, at people who are not following them.
 

EJCC

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Most satisfying: Protective affection, and also justified/productive anger, the kind that actually changes a person's attitude and gets something accomplished. I like both of these because they make me feel strong and benevolent. Sometimes I can express them both at once, and feel like an avenger of wrongs and doer of justice.
Least satisfying: Unjustified/unproductive anger, the kind that should never be expressed, and can lead you to lose friends.

Most satisfying = wonder. It combines a sense of peace, fascination, and insight. For me it is the truest form of happiness. It is the feeling of most fully comprehending what is beyond me.
I agree with all of this -- except for the expression factor. Although wonder is one of my favorite emotions, for the same reasons you listed, I'm not sure if I've ever really expressed it, in the sense of the word that I can understand. Maybe it's my inferior Fi, but when I've tried to explain my sense of wonder to people, I could never do it justice.
 

bluestripes

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Most satisfying = wonder. It combines a sense of peace, fascination, and insight. For me it is the truest form of happiness. It is the feeling of most fully comprehending what is beyond me.

Same for me: wonder, awe, amazement. I enjoy seeing something new, having my horizons broadened in unexpected ways. This combines learning, appreciation, and a new perspective relative to the every-day and familiar.

and same for me. i wouldn't call it a serene feeling - it's often intense, more like being struck down by an internal mini-lightning. but it is the most satisfying emotion out there. it makes me understand how much meaning is there in every second of our waking lives, including mine (despite the dampened moods that may make everything look dull, monotonous and not quite worth it). and it is cleansing - like shedding an old shell of sorts and emerging as a completely new being, with a different outlook on the world and a different sense of connection to it.

i would have named joy and gratitude, too, but it would seem that they are secondary to that sense of awe and would be impossible without it.
 

Noon

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It's a tie between: admiration, relief, exhaustion, pride, and sadness.
The only emotion I really don't enjoy is anger.
 

King sns

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Most fun: Joy, humor and sillyness

Least fun: apathy or annoyedness and irritation as those are just emotions that make me feel closed minded and trapped in my own mind.
 

EJCC

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It's a tie between: admiration, relief, exhaustion, pride, and sadness.
The only emotion I really don't enjoy is anger.
You find sadness to be more satisfying than anger? :huh: I find this so interesting. Is it because of the consequences of anger, versus the consequences of sadness?
 

King sns

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You find sadness to be more satisfying than anger? :huh: I find this so interesting. Is it because of the consequences of anger, versus the consequences of sadness?

No, sadness is simply more relieving, you feel better after some genuine sadness- like when you're nauseated and you vomit and then you feel wonderful after. I don't get that with anger. I just have to wait for it to cool down or go to bed.
 

EJCC

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No, sadness is simply more relieving, you feel better after some genuine sadness- like when you're nauseated and you vomit and then you feel wonderful after. I don't get that with anger. I just have to wait for it to cool down or go to bed.
Oh, this makes sense! Ok. I wonder if it's function- or type-related. Because I feel the same catharsis with anger, and zero of the catharsis with sadness. If I watch movies, or listen to music, or read a book, that is painfully sad and possibly makes me sad, i just end up feeling more sad, and have a hard time raising my spirits afterwards. Whereas, listening to music or watching movies etc with massive explosions of RAGE is one of the most beautifully cathartic things for me. (I'm not really sure why this is -- but it's part of the reason why, if a movie has made me cry, I will never, ever watch it again.)

Here's an example, in the form of a conversation I had with someone about music.
INFP Friend: Do you listen to Regina Spektor?
Me: Nah, man. Listening to her is like being dragged into a room with no windows and no doors and being beaten over the head with the worst human emotions, for over an hour. It's kind of traumatic.
INFP Friend (looking confused): Traumatic? Really? But you listen to such intense music.
^ My version of "intense" was intensely sad, e.g. Regina Spektor (and sometimes Amanda Palmer), whereas her version of intense is some of the hard rock and metal that I listen to -- which has exactly the same feeling of black-box intimacy, only with anger instead of sadness.
 

King sns

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Oh, this makes sense! Ok. I wonder if it's function- or type-related. Because I feel the same catharsis with anger, and zero of the catharsis with sadness. If I watch movies, or listen to music, or read a book, that is painfully sad and possibly makes me sad, i just end up feeling more sad, and have a hard time raising my spirits afterwards. Whereas, listening to movies or watching movies etc with massive explosions of RAGE out of a character is one of the most beautifully cathartic things for me. (I'm not really sure why this is -- but it's part of the reason why, if a movie has made me cry, I will never, ever watch it again.)

Here's an example, in the form of a conversation I had with someone about music.
INFP Friend: Do you listen to Regina Spektor?
Me: Nah, man. Listening to her is like being dragged into a room with no windows and no doors and being beaten over the head with the worst human emotions, for over an hour. It's kind of traumatic.
INFP Friend (looking confused): Traumatic? Really? But you listen to such intense music.
^ My version of "intense" was intensely sad, e.g. Regina Spektor (and sometimes Amanda Palmer), whereas her version of intense is some of the hard rock and metal that I listen to -- which has exactly the same feeling of black-box intimacy, only with anger instead of sadness.

Yeah, I was actually thinking it could be type related, or even related to emotions that you are "used" to feeling and having adjusted to it better.
 

Vasilisa

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Deep love. Its so rare to feel and be free to express honestly.
 

Noon

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You find sadness to be more satisfying than anger? :huh: I find this so interesting. Is it because of the consequences of anger, versus the consequences of sadness?
I think it's more that sadness is passive and introspective. The goal of sadness is to think differently about something.

Anger is one of the most impassive emotions by comparison. The goal of anger is to change something.

You (or at least I) cool down with sadness and heat up with anger. I guess I just prefer to cool down.
 

violet_crown

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A good, cleansing anger is pleasant from time to time.
 

King sns

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A good, cleansing anger is pleasant from time to time.

We're such incompatible friends.

I love expressing hugs and discarding anger.
You love expressing anger and discarding hugs. :(
 

Redbone

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The unnamed emotion that comes from listening to music, dancing, watching the rain fall, or seeing something awe-inspiring, like lightening. Or a mountain, the ocean and so on. It is a spiritual state, an immersion, and feels timeless.


Expressing anger and taking action over an injustice.
 

Burger King

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The feeling one gets when an object, sound, or idea strikes a chord with us, a resonance, a familiarity. It was something in the past, something forgotten. Old feelings resurface. I think it's nostalgia.

There's another emotion I like. It's almost opposite to that of nostalgia. Instead of fixating on the past, the emotion emerges from the feeling of ultimate possibilities. Its focus is the future. Not sure of the word for this one.
 

Mole

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I am yours

The emotion I can't quite grasp. The emotion that tantalized me by being just out of reach. The emotion that is just starting to percolate from my unconscious to my conscious. I don't know what it is yet, but I know it wants to be heard.

It expresses itself by a feeling. I try to understand the feeling. I try to work it out. But I know it is a mystery about to reveal itself. It doesn't want to be prefigured, it want to be itself, completely itself, on its own terms.

So trying to shape it, trying to make it socially acceptable, is seen for what it is - an attempt to control or even suppress the feeling. So sometimes the feeling lies doggo, and waits for an opportunity to flood into my consciousness. It tries to evade all the defences my consciousness has developed to protect itself. And then, as if by surprise, it says, "Here I am, I can be none other, and I am yours".
 
A

A window to the soul

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I'm all out of ideas today, I had to look up a list of emotions, lolz.

Passion is the emotion that feels most satisfying, as it inspires me to do exceptional things.
 

Hazashin

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Oh, this makes sense! Ok. I wonder if it's function- or type-related. Because I feel the same catharsis with anger, and zero of the catharsis with sadness. If I watch movies, or listen to music, or read a book, that is painfully sad and possibly makes me sad, i just end up feeling more sad, and have a hard time raising my spirits afterwards. Whereas, listening to music or watching movies etc with massive explosions of RAGE is one of the most beautifully cathartic things for me. (I'm not really sure why this is -- but it's part of the reason why, if a movie has made me cry, I will never, ever watch it again.)

Here's an example, in the form of a conversation I had with someone about music.
INFP Friend: Do you listen to Regina Spektor?
Me: Nah, man. Listening to her is like being dragged into a room with no windows and no doors and being beaten over the head with the worst human emotions, for over an hour. It's kind of traumatic.
INFP Friend (looking confused): Traumatic? Really? But you listen to such intense music.
^ My version of "intense" was intensely sad, e.g. Regina Spektor (and sometimes Amanda Palmer), whereas her version of intense is some of the hard rock and metal that I listen to -- which has exactly the same feeling of black-box intimacy, only with anger instead of sadness.

Interesting, I'm the same way as your INFP friend and shortnsweet. :laugh:
 

bluestripes

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re: sadness -

No, sadness is simply more relieving, you feel better after some genuine sadness- like when you're nauseated and you vomit and then you feel wonderful after. I don't get that with anger. I just have to wait for it to cool down or go to bed.

i would have to agree with this too, but for me it would work only with one particular shade of sadness. in my teens, i used to call it bright sadness, though "piercing" or "sharp" might be an even better description. it's the sort of feeling that makes me cry uncontrollably and seems intolerable, at first, but once it is gone there will be an overwhelming sense of inner brightness and calm. i get this from sergei esenin's poetry, mozart's "requiem" (which i love love LOVE - it's probably one of the best and most timeless examples of this to ever exist), songs like the original moody blues' version of "nights in white satin" or radiohead's "street spirit [fade out]" and a few movies i like. more recently, i had the same reaction to the final episodes of "angel", for personal reasons. (this to illustrate how diverse the media or genres can be - this can happen across different types of art and is not genre-dependent at all)

but, on the whole, it is rare to encounter this in art. most music considered "emotional" is likely to be the complete opposite. to me, there is no hint at catharsis there - what it does feel like is stepping into a suffocating dark cloud with no hope of emerging. i wouldn't even call this sadness. it's more like a molotov cocktail of generalized distress, irritation and unspecified inner murk. i get enough of that on a daily basis and do not need to be forced to go through more, thanks but no thanks. this is the reason i avoid "emo", goth, goth-rock and most moody folk music like the plague. if someone describes an artist's songs as, say, "conveying a rich feeling of melancholy", my usual reaction is to be extremely wary. the likelihood is that they are going to put me into overload mode, then leave me with a lingering feeling of discomfort and low spirits that is difficult to recover from. this is NOT what i would look for in art of any kind. i think this could be exactly what [MENTION=4945]EJCC[/MENTION] was talking about.

Here's an example, in the form of a conversation I had with someone about music.
INFP Friend: Do you listen to Regina Spektor?
Me: Nah, man. Listening to her is like being dragged into a room with no windows and no doors and being beaten over the head with the worst human emotions, for over an hour. It's kind of traumatic.
INFP Friend (looking confused): Traumatic? Really? But you listen to such intense music.

yes. this. i have to agree when it comes to regina spektor. wouldn't listen to her either, for the exact reason i have mentioned (which seems to be the same as yours). and i would also describe her work and that of other similar artists as "traumatic" or "oppressive" rather than "catharthic".

i think the english word "moving" is quite apt when it comes to the difference between these two types of sadness. the sort that i find valuable MOVES one in a literal sense - it shifts something in one, turns one inside out and transforms one, from within. but most angsty art is counter-transformative. what is does is place one in this black hole, a dead zone where nothing happens. i don't need that - i am already there. my own personal limbo might even be better in that it is a place where you feel next to nothing, or something so obscure it eludes definition, with little hope of exit; and i guess i prefer it to a place where i would feel outright horrible, also with little hope of exit. this is the best i can explain it.

one other thing i find interesting about this undesirable type of sadness i try to avoid is how easily it turns into anger. it doesn't translate into tears easily (not to me) and is extremely difficult to express and get out of my system - so the one option it really leaves is this narrow bottleneck of anger. smashing something in the direct physical sense or having a heated debate is about the only way to make it disappear. and it does seem to have a component of anger in itself, which can quickly turn from a spark into a full-on flame.

Because I feel the same catharsis with anger, and zero of the catharsis with sadness. If I watch movies, or listen to music, or read a book, that is painfully sad and possibly makes me sad, i just end up feeling more sad, and have a hard time raising my spirits afterwards. Whereas, listening to music or watching movies etc with massive explosions of RAGE is one of the most beautifully cathartic things for me. (I'm not really sure why this is -- but it's part of the reason why, if a movie has made me cry, I will never, ever watch it again.)

it's interesting how different people's reactions can be. if a movie has made me cry, i will consider it highly valuable and will recommend it to others as definitely worth watching (of course, with a "possible emotional trigger - susceptible persons beware" label attached). i may not be in a hurry to watch it again, or i may avoid it because i know i am not ready for that feeling to return. but i will be aware that, if i ever need to feel alive again, all i need to do is slip this dvd into the drive, and it is guaranteed to work.

but, again, to me, something that makes me cry is transformative and makes me feel more like a whole human being, takes me out of the limbo-state i'm usually suspended in - the very fact that i had started to cry signals this. most music or art is not going to do that for me.

^ My version of "intense" was intensely sad, e.g. Regina Spektor (and sometimes Amanda Palmer), whereas her version of intense is some of the hard rock and metal that I listen to -- which has exactly the same feeling of black-box intimacy, only with anger instead of sadness.

one interesting thing is that i find harder rock music uplifting and invigorating (provided it is not too dissonant and doesn't have too much screaming and noise for its own sake - i don't like this, it doesn't feel like "music" to me). a few months ago i happened to listen to something by evanescence and was upset that such energetic, happy music could have such horrible emo lyrics, which felt anywhere from trite and stupid to overwhelming. couldn't help but shut them out altogether.
 

lunalum

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Excitement. Most of the others need to leave me alone.
 
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