Unlike cats and crocodiles, humans can feel more than just what makes logical sense. We have a whole bouquet of weird feelings that seemingly lead nowhere. You can’t run, you can’t hide, you can’t eat. You just sit in the kitchen, sipping tea… and suddenly feel sad about the Renaissance. Even though you’ve never lived in that era.
🎭 Two Levels of Feelings: Animal and Human
The first level is instinctive
These are the feelings every creature understands. You’re tired — sleep. In pain — run away. See candy — eat. Feel threatened — get angry or strike. It’s the basic firmware. Even a snail knows to curl up when poked with a stick.
These feelings are simple and honest, like a baby’s: “I DON’T LIKE IT!” or “I WANT IT!”. They’re almost impossible to control. Even if you’re a Zen Buddhist, you’ll still flinch from a loud clap behind your back.
The second level is social and imaginative
This is where our signature human surrealism kicks in. Human feelings can not only arise on their own — they can be triggered by thoughts and images, often made-up ones.
1) Socially-learned feelings
(cue dramatic music)
You weren’t born with guilt. It came later — from parents, school, TV shows, and of course, the internet. As a kid, you broke someone’s toy and just walked away. Then someone said, “Aren’t you ashamed?!” — and bam, guilt appeared.
These feelings — shame, duty, guilt, pity, embarrassment, pride — are kind of hardwired into us by society. We learn them to fit in and avoid making people want to kick us out of the cave. Even if the cave is a third-floor office with no elevator.
👉 Philosophers call this internalization of norms — you take external rules and make them your own. Like someone uploaded them into your brain, and now you’re your own supervisor.
2) Imaginary and image-based feelings
(cue the Interstellar soundtrack)
This is the advanced level. You feel sad about the weather in London even though you’ve never been there. Or you feel admiration for an artist who died 300 years before you were born. These feelings — sadness, sorrow, grief, admiration, happiness, love, infatuation, envy — don’t come from outside stimuli, but from an image in your head.
And here’s where the magic happens. For example:
- You look at a painting and suddenly feel like crying. Even though it’s just canvas and paint.
- Or you read a novel, and your heart flutters with infatuation. Even though you know the character is fictional, and, spoiler alert, dies in the next chapter (sorry).
- Or you feel envious of someone living in a Japanese house, sipping matcha from a real cup. Even though you don’t even drink tea.
👉 These feelings are not necessary, but they make life richer. They’re like spices: you can live without them, but it’s boring.
Freud would say it’s the result of the secondary process of thinking — a complex architecture of associations and images we build from experience, culture, and imagination.
🎮 Can Feelings Be Controlled?
- Instinctive — barely. At most, you can learn not to scream in pain and pretend everything’s fine (thanks, Stoicism).
- Social feelings — can be reprogrammed. You can rethink your morals, go through a few existential crises, and start feeling shame for different things than what you were taught.
- Imaginative feelings — can be caught and played with like an artist. Not suppressed, but used. In creativity, self-reflection, love.
🪞 But Why Feel All This at All?
It seems like half our feelings are just extra weight. Why should anyone feel envy, or sadness about the meaning of life, or mourn a fictional breakup in a TV show? Life would be easier without them.
But these very extra feelings are what make us human. They let us see another person not just as a body, but as an inner world. To empathize, to imagine, to build relationships not just by “you have food — I’m staying”, but on some weird, almost magical level.
Thanks to these feelings, we get:
- books that give you chills;
- films that leave you speechless for half an hour;
- poems you recite from memory on the subway;
- talks that last till morning;
- inner revelations that change us forever.
If we only had reflexes, we wouldn’t ask questions. But with thoughts and images comes existence — all the stuff that makes articles like this one possible.
So if you ever suddenly feel a random sadness or a burst of inspiration from a falling ray of light — don’t push it away. You’re just human. Your brain is working. Congrats.
💡 Conclusion
A human is a unique creature capable of crying over a commercial, falling for a fictional character, and envying someone’s life without knowing if it’s even real. That makes us weird — but beautiful.
As the philosopher might say: “A human is an animal that suffers from thoughts.”
And as I might say: Sometimes it’s sad, but beautiful. And tea tastes better when you’re sad with lemon.