Emotions can certainly be misleading: they can fool you into believing stuff that is definitely, demonstrably untrue. Yet emotions are also our indispensable tool for navigating, for feeling our way through, the much larger domain of stuff that isn't susceptible to proof or disproof, that isn't checkable against the physical universe.
Interpretation
Emotions can mislead us but are essential for understanding beyond logic and proof.
In this quote, Francis Spufford emphasizes the dual nature of emotions; while they can sometimes deceive us into believing falsehoods, they are also crucial for navigating the complexities of human experience that cannot be measured or proven through empirical evidence. Emotions serve as a guiding force in our lives, helping us make sense of abstract or subjective realities that extend beyond mere facts.
In practice
In a discussion about the importance of intuition in decision-making, one might use this quote to highlight the role of emotions.
There have been low moments before, but Christianity is an incredibly adaptable organism, using different parts of its repertoire to mutate into new ecological niches, yet preserving intact its story of grace, of love improbably triumphant.
Taking the things people do wrong seriously is part of taking them seriously. It’s part of letting their actions have weight. It’s part of letting their actions be actions rather than just indifferent shopping choices; of letting their lives tell a life-story, with consequences, and losses, and gains, rather than just be a flurry of events. It’s part of letting them be real enough to be worth loving, rather than just attractive or glamorous or pretty or charismatic or cool.
I went looking for embodiments of pure evil, but found ordinary people.
We would rather see those to whom we do good, than those who do good to us.
And this is the forbidden truth, the unspeakable taboo - that evil is not always repellent but frequently attractive; that it has the power to make of us not simply victims, as nature and accident do, but active accomplices.
The mission of the press is to spread culture while destroying the attention span.
The silence drew off, baring the pebbles and shells and all the tatty wreckage of my life.
Lukewarm people call 'radical' what Jesus expected of all His followers.
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