An artificially generated song asks us to listen without offering anyone to actually listen to. A technology that can be used to create emotionally-moving media without requiring the work of any human capable of feeling emotion is a tool for the mass production of emotional manipulation.

When what we do and even who we are feels wrong, we have entered the territory of guilt and shame. How are these emotions distinct from each other?

In the best of all possible worlds, being grounded would involve connection to a place, to a core set of ethical values, and to a community of people we care about. The world that we live in is not the best of all possible worlds. The emotion that we call being grounded is an ephemeral thing. We talk about it in contrast to the emotions we feel when our connections are ripped away from us.

There’s a lot more to emotion than good and bad, happy and sad. Come back soon to hear more stories of emotional granularity in season 4 of this podcast.

Sehnsucht begins as a misty sort of longing for something at the edge of awareness, but once we reach the object of our sehnsucht, the experience can be mindblowing.

This episode of the podcast is about giving credit where credit is due. Who are the people working on documenting emotional granularity?

If we can perceive the complexity of happiness, then we also can grasp the uncertainty with which happiness is obtained. If we can see that happy people aren’t happy because they’re good, and unhappy people aren’t unhappy because they’re bad, we might be able to summon more compassion for people in moments of unhappiness, and more humility when we happen to find ourselves in a moment of happiness.

We celebrate winter holidays in the way that we populate our Instagram feeds, showing only the warm, bright, and jolly sides of ourselves, and anyone who displays an emotion that is less than cheery is castigated as a grinch or a scrooge. In contrast to these expectations, I am beginning this new season of Stories of Emotional Granularity with an exploration of anxiety.

To meaningfully discuss the feeling of being burned out, it is necessary for us to acknowledge that often, our lives aren’t as lovely and under control as we often like to pretend. Burnout happens when we can no longer maintain the façade of life as it’s supposed to be, and the image we project for others to see falters.

Sadness is one of the most common and familiar of emotions, but it's certainly not basic. Sadness has many emotional associates, and hides itself in plain sight in the guise of defensive anger, protecting our vulnerabilities. What if we were to live a life without sadness?

There are many more women as guests on this podcast than men… twice as many. Why is that the case?

The feeling that one has arrived is an emotion that’s situated within the narrative arc of a journey. First, there was a departure. Then, there was travel, a passage away from the point of departure. Arrival is the emotion that comes when it seems that this journey has come to its completion.

Not everybody feels it, but for those who feel arbejdsglaede, there is joy in work.

Flux is the feeling of a liquid mind, a place in between the solid, static roles that are managed according to reliable and confining rules.

This episode of Stories of Emotional Granularity features insights into trust by Laura Krauss, Betti Rooted Lionheart, Kristen Donnelly, Robin Hafitz, and Marie Thouin.

When we see that the condition of our living planet deteriorating, we feel called to action, and yet, the immensity of the planet and its problems simultaneously paralyzes us.

Pride carries the potential for a painful ironic twist, because it is simultaneously a description of praiseworthiness and an insult describing a person who claims to be worthy of praise but is not.

My daughter feels something with elements of joyful appreciation and anger at the same time. What's the name of that feeling?

Nobody wins all of the time. We are all losers sometimes. Surrender is the choice to acknowledge that loss. Surrender is also the challenging emotion we experience when we make that choice.

If there’s one thing that’s clear about love, it’s that different people experience it differently. Love is one of the most powerful emotions, but we can’t agree about love, even with the people we love.