You’re reading How to Live, a weekly examination of the distance between what you experience and how it’s interpreted.
Some experiences don’t just pass—they’re misread, and that misreading becomes who you think you are. This newsletter returns to those moments and works to correct what was mistaken for identity.
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Before we dig in, I have a book rec!
I just read a stunning novel by Shawn Stewart Ruff and was fortunate enough to have him on my podcast, Bookable.
You will fall in love with Cliffy Douglas, the protagonist of Finlater, a glorious triumph of a novel by Shawn Stewart Ruff. Set in an Ohio housing project in the 1970s, Cliffy is a black 7th grader and spelling bee champ who meets and falls for his “soul brother,” a Jewish boy named Noah, whose family is dealing with mental illness.
Told from Cliffy’s point of view, this is the most unforgettable cast of characters and a queer coming-of-age classic about racism and sexuality in America, written with blazing ferocity by the enormously talented and woefully unsung author Shawn Stewart Ruff.
ARE FEELINGS THE SAME THING AS EMOTIONS?
Although many of us think of ourselves as thinking creatures that feel, biologically, we are feeling creatures that think.
Emotions have always gotten a bad rap.
They’re like New Jersey to native New Yorkers: You know it exists, but you don’t want to go there. Sure, there’s beauty in New Jersey, but you have to spend time there to find it.
When expressing emotions, even the positive ones can earn you some eye rolls. Those who can’t contain their joy and pride are often accused of earnestness, or worse—sentimentality as if gushing weakens us as people.
But it’s the bleaker emotions I’m here to talk about because those scare us even more. Despite how much we think we understand our interior universe, we often confuse emotions with feelings, but they are not the same thing—and knowing the difference might just change your life.
The often overwhelming shadows that emotions cast inside our bodies, darkening what was light just seconds earlier, are so uncomfortable and frightening that we try to avoid feeling the sensations.
We’re so adept at dodging out of discomfort’s way that we can spend years hiding our emotions, not just from other people, but from ourselves.
Getty Images | David Wall
Yet, this withholding—from ourselves and one another—only exacerbates our loneliness and alienation. Being honest about our interior world and the private struggle that comes with it can be terrifying. Being truthful means bracing ourselves for the sickening backsplash of reality rising up our throats, reminding us that we exist in an unresolved uncertainty—who wants that?
But what is emotion? Why are we so reticent of its expression? And how is emotion different from feeling?
Below, I walk you through the life-shifting difference between feeling and emotion, why it matters, and how to distinguish between the two.
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