Author: Jonathan

Jonathan Cook is a researcher of commercial culture, specializing in immersive interviews designed to uncover the emotions, symbols, stories and rituals that drive our behavior in unexpected directions.
Burnout

Burned Out

Burnout is about becoming a wreck because of the very fury with which we once felt devoured by the task at hand.

shame

Shame

People who feel shame often feel guilty, but shame is distinct from guilt. Whereas guilt is the feeling of having done a bad thing, shame is the emotion of being bad, as a… more emotion Shame

Road Rage

Road Rage

When the burdens of the road meet the other troubles of life, road rage erupts. Traveling in one-ton vehicles at a mile a minute, the consequences of this emotional break are often deadly.

litost

Litost

There’s a desperate urge to lash out in response to one’s descent, but how can it ever be made right?

Curiosity

Curiosity

Curiosity is an emotion we can access only when we are willing to admit that there are things that are worth knowing that we have no idea about.

Rapture of the Deep

Rapture of the Deep

The rapture of the deep is experienced when a diver lets go of fear, allowing gravity to do its work in a gentle manner, with the soft grip of water seeming to embrace and support every inch of the diver’s body.

Summit Fever

Summit Fever

Extraordinary places often come with their own extraordinary emotions. So it is with the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest, the setting for what has become known as summit fever. The path… more emotion Summit Fever

nihilistic

Nihilistic

Nihilism is a difficult thing to talk about, because most of the time, it’s nothing more than an insult that self-styled philosophers hurl at each other. Intellectually, nihilism is always on shifting sands…. more emotion Nihilistic

Tantalized

Tantalized

I can still remember what it was like when the Windows 95 operating system came out. I was a Mac user at the time, but Apple was regarded back then as a pathetic… more emotion Tantalized

Sehnsucht

Sehnsucht

Sehnsucht is a yearning so singular that nothing else seems to matter, even to the point of self-destruction