4) From the child’s eyes
Even though there is a universal approach to the recognition of particular emotions, signs on faces, body language, and corporeal temperature changes, which are visible in people’s behaviour, recognition is also related to our personal past experiences and tastes, themselves invisible. That is why it makes each emotion so individual, and why it is perceived with so many nuances. Indeed, our first discoveries during childhood obviously influence our perception of what is for us one or another emotion. Some emotions might then be suppressed, such as anger, and certain significations might be understood in the wrong way, according to how parents qualify and communicate with their own emotions.
Anyway, I would like to highlight the fact that, through an innocent child’s eyes, as we all have been first, and learned necessarily from it, emotions are properly experienced, lived quite purely, as if we have eaten them raw. To me, raw sensation evokes something fresh, but not totally digested, unfinished. Conversely ‘cooked’ emotion presumes some learning, understanding, growing, cultivating, which still has a capacity of evolution. So the first raw emotions we had were true of course, impressed upon our life, but they were kind of missing other cooked acquisitions, as emotion is such a particularly unique feeling, each time different and surprising.
I shall start with two important memories in my mind – very personal and detailed – keeping the flow of the narrative. I am telling these stories through the eyes of a child from this period of time, trying to capture the correct emotion in context. Context seems to be slightly linked to the emotions in question, or rather emotions occur in a specific way, dependent on a particular context, with an order of things that can amplify the intensity of one emotion. We must not forget that an emotion arises in order to adapt to certain changes in the surrounding environment.
First personal memory: How a sweet everyday “gouter” turns into a drama…
Every Wednesday, after taking drawing lessons in the Beaux-Arts of Cherbourg – I was about nine years old – I was walking to my grandmother’s house, thinking about the snack awaiting me… In France, it is called “gouter”, a full-fledged moment like afternoon tea, and is especially meant for children. The snack consists of a baguette, with butter, nutella and a drink. I knew she was expecting me, so I couldn’t be late.
I have twenty-three cousins, my father being the last one of his eight brothers and sisters; we are consequently the youngest for my grandmother, nicknamed “sweet grandma”, because she always has some sweets in her pocket…
My grandmother had a particular house built at the foot of the hill, which was very impressive and frightening – all the larger when you are a child. I always had to climb quickly up the precipitous, completely irregular stairs to the leaning garden to avoid rocks, which could have fallen from the enormous hill…
This particular afternoon with my younger brother and sister, we stepped over a barbed wire to go and play in the closed garden. As we were playing the game “Bioman”, fighting to death, I was dragging myself along the ground, and suddenly, a broken glass gashed deeply my knee… Scared by the blood, I didn’t want to look at it, but I knew directly it was very serious; so still focused, I forced myself to climb back quickly down the dangerous stairs without falling… Realizing that my old grandma would probably not know what to do, without my mother, I just sat down, and fainted. Fortunately I think my mother appeared as my saviour minutes after and took me to our doctor friend. He stitched up my wound directly. Eight stitches. Still a mark today, after fifteen years, though not so serious, but it certainly connects me to those to emotions of that moment.
Things happened so fast, and my emotions changed radically as well… Though this memory that is still so clear to me, I can count happiness, I was playing innocently, enjoying time with my family, frightened already a bit by the hill and the garden, as a premonition, but with excitement, of course, being not reassured to be in another forbidden garden, and totally turning to another trouble, feeling faint and breathless, in distress, seized by fear.
A second memory with the other grandma: the murder of a hen…
I am lucky that contexts encourage my imagination to get involved in the story, in places, which are not surreal, but that are all well and real…
On holiday in my grandparent’s big farm, it was like a dream to gambol and discover many places, between attics, barns and henhouses. There were many animals, horses, cows, a dog, cats, and lots of hens and chickens. And you can imagine the daily work to feed all of them. My grandmother left us the funny task of looking for eggs, which were carefully laid and dropped off everywhere on hay bales. In a sense, they were members of the family, and we took care of them everyday.
Now and then, a special ritual took place. And I did not know what to think about it. My grandmother would say: “All right, this coming Sunday, I am going to cook a chicken; one is ready.” She forbade us to go out for a while. The moment of the murder for sure… Sometimes afterwards she would ask us to help to pluck the chicken, which was still warm – my God!
The fact of keeping us inside was understandable, but worst for our crazy imagination… Once older, we spied on the murderer and her crime; she attracted a chosen chicken, catching it by the legs; sometimes, the chicken would run away, understanding the game; sometimes, it would struggle with its wings, groaning horribly…
And the terrible thing is that, now, every time I enter their house, and recognize the smell of grilled legs (they need to be grilled directly on the gas to burn off the rest of the feathers), I instantaneously have a picture of the murder, symbolized by the legs. At least she was catching more chickens than my sweet hens!
Well, of course, we need to live on food, and we need animal protein, but in this example, it is quite a weird mix of joy, fear, disgust, sadness, guilt and, not to say, anger. From those two memories, purposely detailed but, perhaps, too long, I have noticed that our memory can recall perfectly a precise and complex emotion, especially when it is connected to food, or more generally to some physical feelings. Indeed, sensations are the first stage in the process of emotion. Through our skin and our five senses, all things we touch, smell, taste, see or hear provoke the first reactions. Like the “Madelaine” of Proust, as soon as I am confronted with a similar situation, or when the smell goes into my nostrils, it also enters my brain by association; the memory is occurring again in pictures and the context reminds me why…
vendredi 27 février 2009
mardi 10 février 2009
dimanche 8 février 2009
Chapter 9 : Analysis of the questionnaire
9) Analysis of the Questionnaire:
-Keep running the sense from answers and graphics- See a sample page 75 and 77
< The questionnaires comprise a main chart and three others to correspond to the six basic emotions to cooking and timing features, to one ingredient or a food category, and lastly to one colour. The last question was intended to encourage a more personal comment or memory about one emotion that cannot turn into another one, some food cannot be mixed with other food. >
< I received 35 answers that revealed certain tendencies. However, unfortunately, since most of the questionnaires were filled in by students (and mainly art students), I was not able to tell if the results would have been different depending on the age, activity or culture factors of the respondents. It would be interesting to continue the research in that direction. >
I have been creating these questionnaires from the beginning of my research. Being quite instinctive and presenting an unusual way of thinking, they bring out a good, stimulating exterior support for me. I honestly did not know exactly what would the results would be, but little by little, people were in fact according on certain ideas. And, to use them more effectively, I found it helpful at the end to produce a visual direct picture of the results. It offered me a clearer vision, with the graphic shapes that I purposely kept more or less expressive (do not forget to be cautious in speaking about the emotions…).
To consider the answers themselves, it is worth mentioning that “anger” produced unanimous agreements, felt as “hot” and “heavy” (31 out of 35 answers), “red” and “spicy”, and “in volume”.
I outline characteristics which have reached a score up to 20 responses:
Happiness seems also to express an obvious “sweet” sensation, reinforced by “sugar” selection, “light” and “in volume”, seen as a “yellow” colour, and “cooked”. We will come back to this “cooked” fact later.
Then, what we keep in mind is that sadness is a “heavy” and “flat” state, “blue” and “liquid”, lasting long.
Regarding disgust, more various and contradictory ideas came out, to me certainly because it is its property in a sense to be shapeless, transforming by rotting, neither cooked nor raw.
When a surprise takes place, it is unexpected, happens very suddenly; it is rather “raw”, embellished with “baking powder”, and the pleasure may depend on the surprise! Lastly, fear is a “heavy” feeling, since it is restrictive, “cold” and one longs to be free of it.
To another degree, let us try now to analyse what the graphics bring to light. What I have done is to combine certain information; for instance the first experiment is the visualization of the timing on the horizontal scale with the data for the shape and weight on the vertical one, given for each emotion by a colour. Each graphic shows different information and therefore reinforces a particular feature. It gives also a global view, in which you can compare the different spaces they take up, individually and as a group. Would it be at the end, a possible way to suggest that a graphic line that does not cross another one could amount to those emotions that do not live really together? The interest will be in understanding better happiness and its relationship with other emotions.
In this first picture (see graph 1, figure 18), I find it interesting to emphasize the intriguing shape made by happiness in yellow and sadness in blue. They appear symmetrical. That’s how they are formed of opposite characteristics on the vertical scale and similar ones on the time scale: while sadness is a very heavy feeling at the same time as expressing something flat, happiness contrasts being light and in volume. For both, we can sense briefly each feeling from a few minutes to hours and days. Whether 20 people answer a “few days” for sadness against only 7 for happiness, both feelings may also last for a few years, and maybe when happiness is caught, someone said “forever”!
And with disgust and sadness, these two feelings are softer, in the middle, less marked on the extremes, but lukewarm-cold, and salted-sweetish. That is the reason why they can cross happiness.
What else do we see? Surprise has a fine shape, starting from seconds to a short time, rather light and in volume (for a random nice surprise), but could be flat and heavy as well (for bad ones). The feeling of surprise does not have a strong visual impact (is it because it is not such an important emotion, or does not leave its mark on us?) even if it does cross happiness.
The red imposing shape is anger. When this feeling occurs, it is true to say that it sounds very violent, more sudden, but it can last a while. Just as it blows up in volume, it is felt as the heaviest emotion (31/35). Thus it can cross with other emotions.
Fear is also something quite heavy to carry. It hinders quite often the way to happiness, but all the same, they live together. More in volume than sadness for example, fear seems more invasive, sadness drearier, latent.
On this second visual (see graph 2, figure 19), it works differently, reinforcing one central pole (happiness) and different entities excited around it. Anger, fear and surprise appear in duplicate simply because the taste scale consists of different tastes (salty, sweet, spicy) and no really one right-ordered gradation. Anger is hot, rather spicy but also salty; fear is cold, salty and spicy; surprise is mostly hot, spicy and sweet.
About sweetness, what happens is that happiness is a great success and positions like that the yellow shape just in the middle. Hotter, but balanced with lukewarm-cold temperatures, it is like happiness is protected inside as well as locked between all the possible negative attacks. And with disgust and sadness, these two feelings are softer, in the middle, less marked on the extremes, but lukewarm-cold, and salted-sweetish. That is the reason why they can cross happiness.
In the crossing space between emotions, I tried to map out these three examples of mixed emotions. In a previous paragraph about mixed emotions, we have seen that for many people, shame and jealousy were expressing something sad and disgusting, and here on the graphic we see that the stars are included also in those areas.
I do just want to comment on the links between disgust and happiness, because it was not obvious to me at all. For instance, looking at the colour chart, if happiness is seen as yellow (17/35) more often, and disgust as green (13/35), they do share their colour, more than for other emotions. And the same happened for the ingredient choice, happiness is definitely “sugar” (21/35), but to a lesser extent is also “butter” (9/35), like disgust (9/35). The funny thing is that, when I think about it, I find old butter and fats disgusting, but they make at the same time any dish much tastier. I just remember the delicious taste of a real butter croissant (compared to one without). And we well speak also about coarse jokes that we make with very good friends, mixing disgust and laughter… Are they so far from each other? Or is it a question of humour and taste?
As a result of this visual analysis, I would like to point out that happiness, to be reached, seems to face sadness and fear. Anger and surprise might happen and interfere with the pattern, on bad but also good levels. Because they are mainly raw emotions, we have to deal with them, cooking them, making them softer in order to protect the fragile yellow substance.
-Keep running the sense from answers and graphics- See a sample page 75 and 77
< The questionnaires comprise a main chart and three others to correspond to the six basic emotions to cooking and timing features, to one ingredient or a food category, and lastly to one colour. The last question was intended to encourage a more personal comment or memory about one emotion that cannot turn into another one, some food cannot be mixed with other food. >
< I received 35 answers that revealed certain tendencies. However, unfortunately, since most of the questionnaires were filled in by students (and mainly art students), I was not able to tell if the results would have been different depending on the age, activity or culture factors of the respondents. It would be interesting to continue the research in that direction. >
I have been creating these questionnaires from the beginning of my research. Being quite instinctive and presenting an unusual way of thinking, they bring out a good, stimulating exterior support for me. I honestly did not know exactly what would the results would be, but little by little, people were in fact according on certain ideas. And, to use them more effectively, I found it helpful at the end to produce a visual direct picture of the results. It offered me a clearer vision, with the graphic shapes that I purposely kept more or less expressive (do not forget to be cautious in speaking about the emotions…).
To consider the answers themselves, it is worth mentioning that “anger” produced unanimous agreements, felt as “hot” and “heavy” (31 out of 35 answers), “red” and “spicy”, and “in volume”.
I outline characteristics which have reached a score up to 20 responses:
Happiness seems also to express an obvious “sweet” sensation, reinforced by “sugar” selection, “light” and “in volume”, seen as a “yellow” colour, and “cooked”. We will come back to this “cooked” fact later.
Then, what we keep in mind is that sadness is a “heavy” and “flat” state, “blue” and “liquid”, lasting long.
Regarding disgust, more various and contradictory ideas came out, to me certainly because it is its property in a sense to be shapeless, transforming by rotting, neither cooked nor raw.
When a surprise takes place, it is unexpected, happens very suddenly; it is rather “raw”, embellished with “baking powder”, and the pleasure may depend on the surprise! Lastly, fear is a “heavy” feeling, since it is restrictive, “cold” and one longs to be free of it.
To another degree, let us try now to analyse what the graphics bring to light. What I have done is to combine certain information; for instance the first experiment is the visualization of the timing on the horizontal scale with the data for the shape and weight on the vertical one, given for each emotion by a colour. Each graphic shows different information and therefore reinforces a particular feature. It gives also a global view, in which you can compare the different spaces they take up, individually and as a group. Would it be at the end, a possible way to suggest that a graphic line that does not cross another one could amount to those emotions that do not live really together? The interest will be in understanding better happiness and its relationship with other emotions.
In this first picture (see graph 1, figure 18), I find it interesting to emphasize the intriguing shape made by happiness in yellow and sadness in blue. They appear symmetrical. That’s how they are formed of opposite characteristics on the vertical scale and similar ones on the time scale: while sadness is a very heavy feeling at the same time as expressing something flat, happiness contrasts being light and in volume. For both, we can sense briefly each feeling from a few minutes to hours and days. Whether 20 people answer a “few days” for sadness against only 7 for happiness, both feelings may also last for a few years, and maybe when happiness is caught, someone said “forever”!
And with disgust and sadness, these two feelings are softer, in the middle, less marked on the extremes, but lukewarm-cold, and salted-sweetish. That is the reason why they can cross happiness.
What else do we see? Surprise has a fine shape, starting from seconds to a short time, rather light and in volume (for a random nice surprise), but could be flat and heavy as well (for bad ones). The feeling of surprise does not have a strong visual impact (is it because it is not such an important emotion, or does not leave its mark on us?) even if it does cross happiness.
The red imposing shape is anger. When this feeling occurs, it is true to say that it sounds very violent, more sudden, but it can last a while. Just as it blows up in volume, it is felt as the heaviest emotion (31/35). Thus it can cross with other emotions.
Fear is also something quite heavy to carry. It hinders quite often the way to happiness, but all the same, they live together. More in volume than sadness for example, fear seems more invasive, sadness drearier, latent.
On this second visual (see graph 2, figure 19), it works differently, reinforcing one central pole (happiness) and different entities excited around it. Anger, fear and surprise appear in duplicate simply because the taste scale consists of different tastes (salty, sweet, spicy) and no really one right-ordered gradation. Anger is hot, rather spicy but also salty; fear is cold, salty and spicy; surprise is mostly hot, spicy and sweet.
About sweetness, what happens is that happiness is a great success and positions like that the yellow shape just in the middle. Hotter, but balanced with lukewarm-cold temperatures, it is like happiness is protected inside as well as locked between all the possible negative attacks. And with disgust and sadness, these two feelings are softer, in the middle, less marked on the extremes, but lukewarm-cold, and salted-sweetish. That is the reason why they can cross happiness.
In the crossing space between emotions, I tried to map out these three examples of mixed emotions. In a previous paragraph about mixed emotions, we have seen that for many people, shame and jealousy were expressing something sad and disgusting, and here on the graphic we see that the stars are included also in those areas.
I do just want to comment on the links between disgust and happiness, because it was not obvious to me at all. For instance, looking at the colour chart, if happiness is seen as yellow (17/35) more often, and disgust as green (13/35), they do share their colour, more than for other emotions. And the same happened for the ingredient choice, happiness is definitely “sugar” (21/35), but to a lesser extent is also “butter” (9/35), like disgust (9/35). The funny thing is that, when I think about it, I find old butter and fats disgusting, but they make at the same time any dish much tastier. I just remember the delicious taste of a real butter croissant (compared to one without). And we well speak also about coarse jokes that we make with very good friends, mixing disgust and laughter… Are they so far from each other? Or is it a question of humour and taste?
As a result of this visual analysis, I would like to point out that happiness, to be reached, seems to face sadness and fear. Anger and surprise might happen and interfere with the pattern, on bad but also good levels. Because they are mainly raw emotions, we have to deal with them, cooking them, making them softer in order to protect the fragile yellow substance.
samedi 7 février 2009
Chapter 10: A question of proportions
10) A question of proportions
Well, actually what was noticed by different people at the end of the questionnaire was the major importance of the proportions. As soon as you make a cake or adapt to a situation, you have to weigh the right amount of ingredients to go together with other ingredients that are already in place.
Because you do not have to change your entire recipe, you have to find a way to adjust it better. If it tastes too spicy, you put in less garlic and pepper. Or perhaps it was not the proper time when you inserted the milk, as you got into a passionate state of mind that was not there yet for the other person: the dough falls down faster than expected.
Asking the question of how it was possible to move from a sad state to a happier one, one friend of mine gave this accurate point of view: “I think that we can move from sadness to happiness by finding the ingredient missing (or too big a quantity of an ingredient) and then be courageous enough to take it away or add the ingredient we think is missing…the difficult task is to find what has to be taken away and what added… Happiness to sadness would be to realise that the recipe was wrong…” So find a nice measurement is like detecting your own tempo; the personal rhythm has to be considered.
Let us give another comparison. To measure the intense aromatic persistence of the wine in the mouth in seconds, the name “caudalie” was used to refer to this precious moment of the expression and flavours that develop, and these are estimated in a number of “caudalies”. I say that it “was” used, because it is regretfully disappearing from French dictionaries. Experts on wine tasting judge some of the best Sauternes as counting up to 25 caudalies, meaning 25 incredible seconds of sense effervescence.
I found interesting this particular measure proper to wine because we feel kind of the same persistence with a painful feeling or marvellous one that is in fact non-describable. It would be interesting to create a measurement related to the intensity of emotions. We can wonder then, as we need a level of protein, carbohydrate, lipid and vitamin to maintain nutrition and energy, whether we perhaps need a certain level of love and motivation to balance and come near happiness, if these are seen as a nutritive aim. At the end, proportions are something we fix up in order to create homogeneity between the ingredients. Our emotions are felt as positive or negative depending on the level of satisfaction we have fixed up before. Sometimes we certainly establish this level higher than what is honestly possible to get. We are generally too much unsatisfied and it is a real work to learn to become satisfied from small pleasures; it is getting a chance to whatever tiny joy we meet often.
Well, actually what was noticed by different people at the end of the questionnaire was the major importance of the proportions. As soon as you make a cake or adapt to a situation, you have to weigh the right amount of ingredients to go together with other ingredients that are already in place.
Because you do not have to change your entire recipe, you have to find a way to adjust it better. If it tastes too spicy, you put in less garlic and pepper. Or perhaps it was not the proper time when you inserted the milk, as you got into a passionate state of mind that was not there yet for the other person: the dough falls down faster than expected.
Asking the question of how it was possible to move from a sad state to a happier one, one friend of mine gave this accurate point of view: “I think that we can move from sadness to happiness by finding the ingredient missing (or too big a quantity of an ingredient) and then be courageous enough to take it away or add the ingredient we think is missing…the difficult task is to find what has to be taken away and what added… Happiness to sadness would be to realise that the recipe was wrong…” So find a nice measurement is like detecting your own tempo; the personal rhythm has to be considered.
Let us give another comparison. To measure the intense aromatic persistence of the wine in the mouth in seconds, the name “caudalie” was used to refer to this precious moment of the expression and flavours that develop, and these are estimated in a number of “caudalies”. I say that it “was” used, because it is regretfully disappearing from French dictionaries. Experts on wine tasting judge some of the best Sauternes as counting up to 25 caudalies, meaning 25 incredible seconds of sense effervescence.
I found interesting this particular measure proper to wine because we feel kind of the same persistence with a painful feeling or marvellous one that is in fact non-describable. It would be interesting to create a measurement related to the intensity of emotions. We can wonder then, as we need a level of protein, carbohydrate, lipid and vitamin to maintain nutrition and energy, whether we perhaps need a certain level of love and motivation to balance and come near happiness, if these are seen as a nutritive aim. At the end, proportions are something we fix up in order to create homogeneity between the ingredients. Our emotions are felt as positive or negative depending on the level of satisfaction we have fixed up before. Sometimes we certainly establish this level higher than what is honestly possible to get. We are generally too much unsatisfied and it is a real work to learn to become satisfied from small pleasures; it is getting a chance to whatever tiny joy we meet often.
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