Explore the Space: Widening the Range of Emotions

This post is about the need to explore the space of widening the range of our emotions for human flourishing.

Saturday had been a gloomy, rainy day. But the report I received upon arrival at my son Christopher’s adult care facility was hardly gloomy or rainy. Christopher had manifested a widening range of emotions on Saturday, as well as in recent days. I do not ever take his emotional activity for granted since his traumatic brain injury in January 2021.

Christopher’s two favorite CNAs were responsible for tending to his basic needs, working side by side much of the day. One of the two CNAs reported that Christopher had given them the stink eye. They were taken aback by the evil eye. Seemingly satisfied with their reaction, he then smiled at them. The CNA told me Christopher had been messing with them.

I also asked the registered nurse whom Mariko has registered as Christopher’s “Second Mom” if she sensed consciousness when she was tending to him Saturday. Immediately, she replied, “Most definitely.” She noted that Christopher would go from rolling his eyes at things she would say to him, then smiling, even giving a big smile that was reaching for each of his ears.

Christopher has always been complex, including his emotional state. Whether he meant to do so growing up, he would often mess with my emotions. Perhaps I have him to thank in part for a wide range of emotions, including today.

It is very easy to succumb to limiting one’s range of emotions so as not to feel pain and endure suffering. But if feelings are key to what make us human, we need to “explore the space” of emotions rather than limit them, kind of like that famous SNL skit “More Cowbell.” (Check it out!) We need to develop and expand our repertoire of emotions (Refer to this Psychology Today article titled “What’s Your Emotional Range?”)

Emotions can prove dangerous. But so, too, could altering the genome to remove dangerous emotions or numbing them through medication into total submission. Emotions are nothing to play with, even when we are being playful. So much is going on deep below the surface. Again, emotions are core to what make us human. Here’s what famed sociobiologist E.O. Wilson had to say about the importance of emotions for our humanity in an interview with Spiegel:

“Do we really want to improve ourselves? Humans are a very young species, in geologic terms, and that’s probably why we’re such a mess. We’re still living with all this aggression and ability to go to war. But do we really want to change ourselves? We’re right on the edge of an era of being able to actually alter the human genome. But do we want that? Do we want to create a race that’s more rational and free of many of these emotions? My response is no, because the only thing that distinguishes us from super-intelligent robots are our imperfect, sloppy, maybe even dangerous emotions. They are what makes us human.”

I hope for the day when Christopher and I can discuss Wilson’s theory of emotions and the ethical considerations bound up with the possibility of editing the human genome, which I discussed in my new ethics book, More Than Things, and dedicated to his daughter Jaylah along with our medical ethicist consultant Dr. Robert Potter. I know Christopher would love to discuss this subject with me, and would no doubt run circles around my brain, like he used to do. In the meantime, I have opportunity to experience his growing range of emotional activity since the onslaught of his TBI.

Recently, Christopher cried in his CNAs’ presence. No, they weren’t crocodile tears. Something the CNAs said apparently triggered a memory from his past life. They decided not to reference it in the future in his presence. Even so, while Christopher feels painful, even searing emotions at times, and I endure sharp pain whenever he has felt pain from infancy to the present day, it is better than being comfortably numb. While I love the Pink Floyd song by the title “Comfortably Numb,” especially David Gilmour’s guitar solo, I dare not become comfortably numb in life if I really want to live. (Please watch this version of “Comfortably Numb” performed by David Gilmour and his bandmates in Brazil. Wow!)

We are taught to feel dumb when we express a range of emotions. Maybe that’s one reason why Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain wrote the song “Dumb,” which is beautifully played here in New York City at “Unplugged” just months before his passing. Perhaps Cobain was articulating his honest struggle with mental health. And just maybe, he was exploring the space of a wide range of emotions, not bottling them up, as one would be prone to do given all the pain he endured from childhood to the present hour. Regardless of the rationale, I am thankful that he left us with a treasure chest of his humanity, including “Something In The Way,” “Heart-Shaped Box,” and “Dumb.”

Of course, we need to be discerning on how we express a range of emotions. Scripture says, “Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.” (James 1:19) But it does not exhort us to bottle up our feelings or hide from being honest about them. If so, we might as well cut out the Psalms, which definitely explore the space of a very wide range of emotional activity. That book of the Bible is a lifeline to honest humanity in all our emotional complexity. Explore the space like the Psalms do, accounting for such emotions as anger, sorrow, joy, fear, love, awe, and wonder.

Christopher has courage to explore the widening space of his emotions. It comes at a cost to him and me. But I would rather his consciousness be expanding than the alternative scenario.

How about us? Are we willing to explore the space of our emotions, to be honest with ourselves even when it hurts? Of course, there are limits. We need to seek out good, safe counselors who are solid sounding boards and who can help us navigate emotional extremes. These good counselors will also encourage us to be honest and will walk with us amid the highs and lows and everywhere in between. No matter how great the two rock songs mentioned earlier are, let’s not become “comfortably numb” when it comes to our emotional range or feel “dumb” in being honest about our emotions. Let’s join Christopher and explore the space of widening the range of our emotions.