Feelings are a life-saving device
It’s a short trip from contemplating physical pain to reflecting on psychic pain. What is the evolutionary purpose behind emotional pain? If evolution has brought us to where we are now, with our anxieties, fears, anger, depression and drug dependency, what were the original benefits of such emotions?
Consider how readily you reach for a painkiller when you have a bit of a headache, a spell of arthritis or a sprained ankle. You’ve experienced the pain and had enough of it. Your primary desire is to suppress it – if you can’t make it go away then at least you can suppress it. Perhaps there’s a deeper message in the pain though –