Viraj's Weblog

I was reading about a study on emotions. There was an experiment done with people who basically have went through some sort of trauma that made them emotionless. These were people that were at the ultimate calm. Nothing could upset them or make them sad, and also nothing could make them happy. They simply had no emotional states, and did not have these feelings.

What the scientists found out is that these people have trouble making decisions. Whenever they were given simple questions, where they had to choose between many equally valid answers, they could not do it. They would basically be stuck in an 'indecision' mode, and nothing would tip them over to make a choice.

The scientists claimed that emotions are what tips us over to one side, and causes us to make decisions. I thought this was really fascinating. You always hear that you should be calm when making decisions and such, but really if you are completely calm (the ultimate calm) you will not make any decisions. So there has to be some emotion there to push you. It's like being on a fence, or stuck in some race condition or infinite loop.

So when you get emotional keep in mind it's not entirely a bad thing.