Why do we feel pain and emotions?

Question

Why do we feel pain and emotions? Why are we made like this? I understand the greatness in being able to feel textures and being able to feel great emotions like happiness but why do we also feel things like pain and emotions like sadness?

Answer 1

Without the pain and sadness the great things wouldn't be as great. The lower the low the higher the high is. The sadness makes the happiness greater, because not only are you happy, but you are also not sad.

Answer 2

I look at it if it is a magnet.  On one end you have positive emotion, and the other you have negative emotion.  The middle is the in between emotion. Both positive and negative energy make the world work the way it does.  

Just think how great it is when you are sad, and someone cheers you up.  Or, how about when you are angry, and you can do something about it.  Without the negative emotions we would miss out on a lot of the positive emotions that come after.

Answer 3

Were it not for your conscious mind, you would never question such feelings.  The feelings are more normal than the mind.

Answer 4

For the same reason that we go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning. There are things about being human where the "how" is interesting but the "why" isn't worth asking, in my opinion.

Answer 5

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.

Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.

When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

--from the book "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran, under the section Joy and Sorrow

Answer 6

pain is the alarm of hurt, harm and injuries.

emotions are the communication link between pain and your brain of doing what's next.

Answer 7

Pain evolved from reflexive stimuli of harm.  If a foreign object enters your body, then you feel pain, because that object can potentially kill you (like being stabbed by a knife or shot with a gun).  In order to survive, mammals had to develop pain receptors to engage their fight-or-flight response to environments that threatened to harm or hurt the animal.

Emotions are a much more sophisticated evolutionary trait.  My theory is that emotions developed as a social mechanism for human beings to develop tight-knit societies (like monkeys).  If you will notice, then you will see that monkeys also express emotions (varying facial gestures).  The development of emotions has led to exponential increases in human communication and language... Thus, pain & emotion are good things (even though they can and do often hurt you).

Answer 8

I think that if we didn't feel emotional pain that would be freaking great, but then the sun wouldn't shine so bright when we are happy.

Its just like if we didn't see the ugly side of things we wouldn't  applicate the beautiful things in life.

Answer 9

we feel pain so that we know what love feels like,,emotions is what brings us closer to people and ourselves

Answer 10

If you don't feel pain how would you know what's bad for you? and what will kill you? Pain is necessary.

Answer 11

Pain shows us what we need to avoid. When we have gratitude for that lesson, pain changes automatically.

As we explore what's behind our fear, anger and sorrow, we learn to put them behind us and become joyful, as in Gibran's writing above.. All other emotions are obstructions to joy, but necessary to embrace to learn from.