"Yet the neurobiology of happiness, which has generally been ignored by researchers as well as physicians, may be equally important in the disorders. 'The missing part of our picture of anxiety is the good feelings associated with being safe and secure,' Dr. Rogan says. 'But positive emotions are harder to study in the lab than negative emotions like fear. How do you know when you've made a mouse feel safe and secure?'"
The thing that sometimes worries me about emotions is that they're basically a matter of unruly molecules. This is, of course, the same sort of reductionism that sends Fundamentalists running for their bibles in a vain effort to convince themselves the Self is endowed with a soul or spirit. (And just maybe it really is . . . although I'd venture to say the nature of the "soul," if there is such a thing, is massively stranger than anything encountered in religious texts.)
Unlike the religiously inclined, I don't have any grave existential problem with the concept that my emotions -- which constitute a great deal of who I am -- can be chalked up to neurochemical activity. What does trouble me is the sanctified role we allow emotions to play in our lives when, on a fundamental level, they're so easily subject to manipulation. I'm not proposing that we all become "intellects vast, cool and unsympathetic" -- but I think we should strive to become acutely aware what's going on inside our heads so we can practice preventive maintenance.
Emotions seem to operate, at least partly, like viruses, hopping from mind to mind like invisible puppeteers. This isn't inherently bad. But like the "word virus" explored by William Burroughs, I think it's limiting. Perhaps future technologies can create a more insightful arena for emotions, allowing us a wide degree of flexibility and conscious volition where once was mere chemistry. Some of us may even choose to turn off emotional reactions for specific periods, for reasons too varied to accurately anticipate.
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