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.
plummeting

Freefall

There are times we feel in decline. Our luck fails us. Our abilities drop. We feel ourselves falling into bad patterns. These bad times are nothing compared to a freefall. When we’re in… more emotion Freefall

Discombobulated

Discombobulated

Etymology, the study of the origins of words, can often help us to understand the subtle depths of meaning that rest below their taken for granted day-to-day use. This is certainly the case… more emotion Discombobulated

Friday Feeling

Friday Feeling

This morning, the business humanist Sesil Pir posted the following message with the #FridayFeeling hashtag: “#Awarenesshas no shape or color. It is beyond presence or absence, coming or going. Instead, there is a… more emotion Friday Feeling

fear in flames

Fear

The word fear is derived from an old Germanic word that referred to danger. So, fear is the feeling of being in danger. Of course, we aren’t just afraid of what we see… more emotion Fear

Heartbroken devastation

Heartbreak

Flying in from Chicago, Omaha seems like a sleepy little cow town. Driving in from a long day’s trip from Wyoming through western Nebraska, Omaha seems like a metropolis. Emotions are like this… more emotion Heartbreak

Love

Love

One of the most frightening thing about the theory of basic emotions that forms the foundation of all Emotion AI projects is that it completely fails to include love. The reason for this… more emotion Love

certainty

Certainty

Emotion is a tricky thing. It could be said that if you’re talking about something that’s certain, it isn’t an emotion. But, then uncertainty has its revenge, because certainty itself is an emotion…. more emotion Certainty

Gordian knot of nonplus

Nonplussed

The word nonplussed derives from the Latin phrase non plus, meaning “no more”. The emotion of being nonplussed refers to the feeling of being brought to a standstill in which one doesn’t know… more emotion Nonplussed

the call of the void

L’Appel du Vide

If you have stood on the top of a skyscraper or climbed a high mountain to emerge at the edge of a steep cliff, the chances are good that you have experienced the… more emotion L’Appel du Vide

pride emotion

Pride

The Merriam Webster dictionary identifies two main aspects of the emotion of pride: Right away, the difficulty in understanding the emotional significance of pride becomes apparent. Pride is understood as both as a… more emotion Pride