Thoughts In Progress

Since I am not sure where to begin, mainly because there is so much in my head, I decided I would like to start by doing a weekly quote and my random thoughts on it. An exercise of the mind really.

I want to begin by thanking Jason for pointing me towards the author of my very first quote.

"Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings-always darker, emptier and simpler." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Honestly, I find this to be very intimidating.  If thoughts are just a portion of our emotions, then there are a lot of us out there that have some very complex and unchartered territory that must be explored. Even though there is a large amount of scientific study and yes, my friends in the field of psychiatry,  I feel that emotions (or the subconscious if you will) is beyond our ordinary understanding.

I want to break down three important words that I feel are tightly connected with our thoughts and thought processes.

1) Subconscious-existing or operating in the mind beneath or beyond consciousness; the totality of mental processes of which the individual is not aware; unreportable mental activities.

2) Emotion-an affective state of consciousness in which joy, sorrow, fear, hate or the like,  is experienced, as distinguished from cognitive and volitional states of consciousness

and of course the main word of my topic

3) Thought- the product of mental activity

See, I have a problem.  I tie emotions not only to the conscious state but to the subconscious as well. I cannot seem to grasp the idea that there is this thin line between the two states.  Perhaps there isn't and I have misconstrued what I was being taught on this subject, perhaps it truly is a state of gray.

If we have this mental activity that is just a slight portion of this huge object, for example a glass of water taken from the ocean, then how can we say emotions are an affective state of consciousness?  Is this middle ground, this portion of gray, between the two states were the mental processes begin to emerge from beneath the surface and connect?

What happens when this glass becomes a gallon, and the gallon a pool, and so forth?  Is this beyond our mental capacity to handle?  Is this what causes people to go "mad"?  Is this an example of what happens to our great minds?  The more aware and knowledgeable a person becomes of not only the world around them but of themselves, their shadows slowly emerge to a bigger picture? A picture we just do not want to, cannot, refuse, or are too overwhelmed to process?

In my final conclusion, while I have more questions then answers, and probably will never fully find a theory that I feel comfortable with, I agree with Nietzsche, the thought is truly only a shadow.