Today more than ever, the education doled out in classrooms is
cold and cognitive. But, once outside, it is our uneducated emotions that move
us, hold us back, and lead us astray. It is, at first and at last, our emotions
that determine our choice of profession, partner, and politics, and our
relation to money, sex, and religion. Nothing can make us feel more alive, or
more human, than our emotions, or hurt us more. Yet many people lumber through
life without giving full consideration to their emotions, partly because our
empirical, materialistic culture does not encourage it or even make it seem
possible, and partly because it requires unusual strength to gaze into the
abyss of our deepest drives, needs, and fears. This book proposes to do just
that, examining over 25 emotions ranging from lust to love and humility to
humiliation, and drawing some useful and surprising conclusions along the way.