A person experiences different emotions in various situations, which color them in different shades. There are positive and negative emotions such as pride or boredom. In everyday life, they organically interact, forming a whole emotional picture of a person’s existence. However, sometimes various events are so unexpected that they shock people. This extreme experience can be expressed by the emotions of joy and fear. Regardless of whether the event is positive or negative, it entails unexpected and extremely strong feelings that a person cannot always cope with. Thus, joy and fear are two sides of the same coin, as they have the same origins and can also be transformed into experiences to be used in the future.
Joy and fear are emotions for a person that are outlined against the background of everyday events and are quite rare. In this respect, they are similar to each other, as they are a source of unexpected insights for people. Smith notes that there is “the great struggle that tends to precede joy” (5). In turn, Thompson refers to fear as part of the imagination and argues that this emotion can provide a person with the opportunity to “translated that fear into preparation and action.” Thus, joy and fear are two sides of the same coin because they can become a shock. Both emotional states have a profound effect on a person and come so unexpectedly that they will completely distance from reality, albeit for a short time.
Smith and Thompson both emphasize the importance of these emotional shocks for a person but treat them with varying degrees of approval. Smith notes that “if we were sane and reasonable we would every time choose a pleasure over a joy, as animals themselves sensibly do” (7). Thus, the author emphasizes that joy is a kind of climax of an emotional state that excites a person so much that it brings him disappointment. The end of such a state is marked by frustration, while steady and frequent pleasure does not deliver such worries. Smith concludes that the benefits of joy are so short-lived that they do not justify the shock that they bring. Therefore, for Smith, joy is “such a difficult emotion to manage” (1). However, despite the turmoil in such extreme feelings, you can find benefits with the proper desire.
Thompson is optimistic about the emotional shock of fear and views it as a resource for inspiration. She notes that this feeling is necessary since “our fears make us think about the future.” Although this assumption is controversial since the feeling of fear can remind people of death, which makes them think about the future. Nevertheless, the author takes an interesting position, as he proposes to consider fear as an engine of personality development. Through the analysis of the situation that brought this emotion, a person can learn a valuable lesson that will form the basis for future actions. In contrast to Smith, Thompson has no doubts about the usefulness of these feelings and no doubt about their value.
Despite the rather different views of the two authors on such extreme emotions, both sources provide an opportunity to apply them to their lives. Smith (1) emphasizes that he does not understand how joy and everyday life can be combined but describes the events of his past through it. Thus, she uses this emotion to reflect on her past and self-knowledge. Thompson uses fear both in relation to the past and the future, also emphasizing the usefulness of analyzing the events associated with this emotion. Joy can be, as well as fear, a marker of key events that, after reflection, can be transformed into experience.
References
Smith, Zadie. “Joy.” The New York Review of Books, 2013. Web.
Thompson, Karen. “What Fear Can Teach Us?” TED: Ideas Worth Spreading, 2012. Web.