The shape of emotions

They define our experiences, shape our perspectives, and influence our actions. While we often talk about emotions in abstract terms—love, anger, sadness—what if we thought about emotions not just as feelings, but as shapes? What if the joy we feel could take form, or the anger inside us could be something we could trace with our fingers? This concept challenges the idea that emotions are fleeting and intangible, encouraging us to explore how emotions might have texture, volume, and structure.

### The Fluidity of Emotions

Imagine joy as a radiant circle, expanding outward with every laugh, every positive interaction, a shape that feels endless and enveloping. It moves freely, often spilling over into every corner of our lives. It is vast, stretching and reaching, yet gentle enough to embrace the spaces between people. Love’s shape, like joy, seems expansive—both warm and inviting.

On the other hand, sadness might be a downward spiral, curling inward like a vortex, its edges jagged and sharp. Unlike joy, which seems to fill a space, sadness has a way of contracting, making the world feel smaller. This contraction can feel heavy, pulling down on our hearts, and its spirals take us into the depths of our minds. It is darker, a form that feels less like a shape to move through and more like something that we get caught within.

### Anger and its Edges

Then, there's anger—a shape that is often described as jagged, spiked, and sudden. It doesn’t curve gently but rather juts outward, a collection of aggressive lines that tear through any calmness in their path. The sharpness of anger is visible in the clenching of fists or the set jaw. It is an energy that demands release, often causing distortion and imbalance. Where joy feels light and free, anger feels urgent and unyielding, a shape that often requires a boundary to stop it from spilling over. Its boundaries, however, are not always clear. Anger is unpredictable—it can surge in an instant, disrupting even the most controlled emotions.

### Fear's Invisible Walls

Fear, in contrast, feels more as a cage. It doesn’t necessarily expand or contract but forms barriers. Fear builds walls around us, thick and invisible at first, but easily felt as they close in. This shape can trap us in patterns of thought, making the world feel smaller, less expansive. But fear is also a shape that shifts. It’s not always a wall; sometimes it’s a shadow, creeping up behind us and lingering at the edge of our vision. It warps the way we see things and twists ordinary experiences into something that feels dangerous.

### Surprise: A Sharp Angle

Surprise, in its purest form, is often depicted as an unexpected angle—something that cuts across all other emotions. It appears suddenly, as if the very shape of reality has shifted before our eyes. It might not have the depth of love or the intensity of anger, but its sudden emergence creates a sharp change in direction. It might catch us off guard, but as quickly as it arrives, it often fades. Surprise is temporary, not a constant force but a jolt that realigns our emotional map.

### The Tension Between Shapes

What’s fascinating is how these shapes often interact with one another. Emotions are rarely experienced in isolation; rather, they overlap, twist, and sometimes meld together. Anger can morph into sadness, and sadness can give way to joy. These transitions are shapes colliding, blending, or even bending one another. This constant shift creates a fluidity to human experience—a dance between opposing forces where joy might be interrupted by fear, or love may be clouded by anger. In these moments, our emotional shapes take on new forms, sometimes fluid, sometimes rigid, sometimes chaotic.

### The Language of Shapes

When we talk about emotions, we often do so in terms of metaphors: "I’m on top of the world" for happiness, or "feeling weighed down" for sadness. What if we could fully express our feelings in shapes? Could we better communicate the complexity of our internal landscapes if we could trace the jagged peaks of anger or the soft curves of love? In this sense, emotions are not just internal experiences but could be visualized, understood, and shared in a new way.

Perhaps this is why art and creativity have such a profound ability to capture emotions. A painter may not directly depict sadness but instead choose sharp, angular lines to convey the unease that accompanies it. A sculptor might shape a piece with smooth, open curves to symbolize the vastness of love. In these ways, emotions take shape in the physical world, allowing others to feel them in a way that words alone may not.

IN THE END

The shapes of emotions give us new ways to understand our feelings. They provide a visual language for what is often an internal experience. When we begin to see joy as a circle, sadness as a spiral, or anger as a jagged line, we may gain a deeper understanding of what these emotions do to us and how they interact. These shapes are not static, but living forms that shift with us as we move through the highs and lows of life. Understanding the shape of emotions invites us to approach them with curiosity, recognizing that they are not mere abstractions but forces that can be seen, felt, and shared.