Wisdom Insight: Why Are Emotions Vexed?

By Akanksha Shukla

Emotions remain one of the most misunderstood forces within the human experience. Few truly comprehend the magnitude of their power — how destructive they can be, how devastatingly they can shatter the heart, or how deeply they can drag a person into the abyss of their own intensity. Emotions have the capacity to turn a soul into a landscape of numbness — a body that remembers how to cry but can no longer summon tears. Eyes that once burned with desperate mercy now remain dry, stripped of even the betrayal of tears that once refused to stop falling.

There comes a stage when one wishes to feel the sting of harsh words, to experience the agony coursing through the nerves — yet all that emerges is an unfeeling void. Awareness still persists; awareness of the seriousness, the importance of what is being felt. Awareness of the destruction these emotions bring, the damage that quietly unfolds with each passing moment. Yet the individual stands bound — hands tied with ropes of mountains, heavy with burdens that pile upon one another, leaving no time to process the emotions separately.

At times, emotions rise like thunderclouds ready to erupt — pouring down torrents of panic, stress, misery, hopelessness, and helplessness. And when the mind attempts to approach them with calm reasoning, urging itself to learn rather than react, it instead suppresses the very feeling it seeks to understand. Gradually, energy fades, and numbness takes its place. Things continue to happen — endlessly — yet nothing is felt.

When emotions are finally acknowledged, the mind begins to search for remedies, to construct solutions for the afflictions it endures. This response — this ability to think, act, and resolve — defines sanity. It is the mark of an active mind, capable of confronting damage and weaving logic through the chaos that surrounds it.

But insanity — that is something different. Insanity is awareness without power. It is the state of knowing one is drowning, yet being too drained to swim. It is the helplessness of watching one’s own mind unravel, fully conscious of the mess being created, and of the people who contribute to it. These very people — once symbols of affection — blur into contradictions, their intentions tangled between truth and deceit, sincerity and mockery.

Insanity is not the absence of understanding; it is understanding in its cruellest form. It is knowing that the worst is unfolding, that destruction is inevitable — yet having no strength left to resist, to think, or to save oneself. It is the exhaustion of emotion, the point where the heart feels everything yet nothing at all. That is the tragedy of awareness. That is the quiet chaos called insanity.

By Akanksha Shukla