This essay is just to describe something that happens in our interactions. This is an odd
topic, but it can be important in a number of different ways especially in terms of how
the parts of a society get along.
Emotions are used for communication. We can communicate happiness, despair or excitement.
It is said that emotions are contagious. It can be hard to resist the communication of
emotions. A person is excited and those around them will almost certainly get stimulated
as well.
In terms of how our society gets along, there is another importance. In an analogy to
physics, emotional energy is conserved. Anger can be passed from one person to another
and then on to another and then on. The same is true of more positive emotions, though
unfortunately they seem to dissipate more.
This book is about how humans can survive based upon existence in a society. This
survival will be based on cooperation. Still, it is about more than just survival, it
is also about how we can be happy, though survival and happiness are linked. In this
sense, there is moral law on the matter. This is also about making the world a better
place. It may seem like a simple platitude, but it is extremely important in the real
world.
Avoid creating or passing on negative emotional energy. Do create and pass on positive
emotional energy.
This becomes something real in a number of situations and it can scale up through the
whole society. Your boss wretches at you. You bring home the bad energy and give it to
your wife and kids. Your wife gives it back to you. It is bad for everyone.
Back when I used to experiment with emotional communication, I learned that if I smiled
at a person just right at just the right time, I could make their whole day. In the
bigger scale, many people believe that if a favor is done for them, that they are
obligated to do a favor for someone else. Behavior like this can make a society work,
especially when there are other factors hurting the society such as an economic downturn.
At times of crisis in a society, the solution is usually how the individuals respond to
each other that solves the wider problem. A good example of this would be FDR's statement
that "All we have to fear is fear itself". It was true. Recovery from that economic
disaster could only be accomplished by the society working together and overcoming
beliefs within the society.
At the same time, a few years back, there was a politician who decided that winning at
all costs was more important than anything else. He wasn't the first to do this or the
last, but his hate, anger and conscious choice to avoid any compromise spread to friend
and enemy alike. He developed methods and policies to avoid compromise and the political
system that had to be based on compromise, lost its effectiveness that came from
compromise. It became more and more polarized to where it did not represent the people
who tend to be fairly moderate instead of fanatic. Only the future will show where this
leads to, but it has already caused a lot of political disaster for the people of the
United States. It all has occurred because of an institutionalized anger and hate that
was created mostly by one man who chose to spread it.