There are Only Fear and Love

Every day you feel a variety of emotions.

You can feel joyful, curious, interested, grateful, compassionate, hopeful, contented, and loving.

You can also feel fearful, disgusted, lonely, angry, sorrowful, embarrassed, shamed, guilty, envious, jealous, and hateful.

But suppose that all those emotions were actually variations of only two underlying emotions.

Today, spend some time considering the idea that there are only two basic emotions in the world. There is Love, and there is Fear, and all other emotions derive from those two opposites.

In particular, Hate is a derivative of Fear. A person can never hate that which they do not first fear.

The relationship between one of the negative emotions and fear is not always obvious, but it is always there. For example, if you are angry that your teenager doesn't pick up their room, you aren't afraid of your own child. What causes you fear is the feeling that you are not in control of the situation. We tend to feel feel fear when when we feel we are not in control and think we should be.

Another example is jealousy. Fear is the emotion that causes our upset when our spouse has an overly friendly chat with the waitress.

If we feel lonely, it is because we are afraid to be alone. If we hate all the people of a certain country, religion, race, color, or set of behaviors, it is because we fear such people.

Look deeply into what you are feeling. When you are joyful, you are feeling love. When you are unhappy, you are experiencing some form of fear.

You never hate that which you do not first fear.

- Jonathan Lockwood Huie