I am sure all of us have read & hear the law of conservation of energy a hundred times. It states that “energy can neither be created nor destroyed - only converted from one form of energy to another”. I recently had a similar insight which is worth both noting down and sharing.
While introspecting the fluctuations with the emotion of “Love” between me and my parents, me and my wife, me and my kid, me and my friends, me and my country, etc suddenly it clicked to me that the resource of “Love” is limited within me. Let me explain:
We identify each other via a name, gender, location, country of citizenship, religious belief, etc but subconsciously each one of us is basically a bundle of emotions that define us as who we are. The amount of each of the emotions varies and hence the character and personalities variance among us. I am me and you are you because we have different amounts of emotions within us.
I soon realized that to find the right answer for my introspection of why is there fluctuations with the emotion of “Love” the answer lies in understanding “what are emotions?” Once I understand this, only then I can drill down further to figure out what is causing them to fluctuate.
Its generally accepted across all cultures and continents that there are about six types of basic emotions, which are:
Happiness | Sadness | Fear |
Surprise | Anger | Disgust |
Obviously, emotions are hard to categorize in just six buckets. To counter this, a recent study(2020) tried to further drill down and identified around 27 emotional categories and also found that emotions were not clear and distinct, but experienced along a gradient. These are:
Admiration | Confusion | Interest |
Adoration | Craving | Joy |
Aesthetic Appreciation | Disgust | Nostalgia |
Amusement | Empathetic pain | Romance/Love |
Anxiety | Entrancement | Sadness |
Awe | Envy | Satisfaction |
Awkwardness | Excitement | Sexual desire |
Boredom | Fear | Sympathy |
Calmness | Horror | Triumph |
“When people do not understand their emotions well and are clueless regarding the emotions of others, it can often lead to misunderstandings and affect relationships, personal or professional. A big part of management, leadership, sales and navigating relationships is being able to understand how people feel and respond appropriately. Forming and maintaining friendships and relationships requires an understanding of oneself and the other person to maintain harmony. Hence, professional and personal interactions would be a lot easier if people were aware of the different emotions.” Take a pause here, let this sink in… when you are ready, let's continue.
Anyways, so far we haven't reached the insight I wish to share as I had to set up the “ground” as without that most of us (including myself) will miss the insight as it's so, so shuttle. And now that we know what emotions are and how each of us has them in different quantities, lets me pitch in a new term “Emotion’s Ecosystem” which is obviously the title of my blog as well.
Just like energy can't be created nor destroyed but can be transformed from one form to another, well so do our emotions. If I want to increase the amount of happiness within me well there is no magic wand available. My only option is to trade it with some other emotion(s).
For example:
I am Anu, who is equal to A amount of Sadness + B amount of Happiness + C amount of Fear + D amount of Anger + E amount of Surprise + F amount of Disgust, wherein the sum is always equal to 100. For me to increase B, I need to either decrease A or C or D or F or some combination of it.
So the amount of “Love” I had in me, let's say for my parents, didn't evaporate anywhere. I have chosen to trade it with another set of emotions, which in this case could be “Interest”, "Triumph" towards my career and “Joy”, “Love” towards my wife & kid, either consciously or subconsciously, directly or indirectly, that does not matter.
As in I have much more “Interest” and I feel much more "Triumph" towards my career hence I chose to reduce the “Love” towards my parents and divert it towards my career. On a similar note, I reduced the “Love” towards my parents further and divert it towards my wife and kid as it brings me more “Joy” & “Admiration” and so on. I hope you get the point and are able to visualize an equation with each emotion as a variable.
Just like the energy has an ecosystem so do our emotions. Just like there is “the law of conservation of energy” so does there exists a “the law of conservation of emotions”. The more deeply I think and introspect the more it becomes clearer and clearer that it's me who is choosing which emotion to trade in for what and with whom. Others have absolutely no say in this. This is both a kick in the gut and a kiss on the cheek moment for me. The insight felt so valuable that I thought of writing it down and also sharing it with others. And that's exactly what I am doing via this blog.
Hope this was worth reading and regardless of whether you agree with me or not, do introspect in this direction. Try to feel this ecosystem of emotions working within you, the inner details might vary, sure I will be a fool to argue on that, but the fundamentals I shared above should still hold.
Peace 
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