Making emotional states into "objects"

 When a person associates a particular activity or situation with a single emotional state, they essentially commit an injustice to the activity. A roller coaster ride can become "scary" when it is labelled as such, even though the person experiencing a roller coaster actually undergoes many minute emotional states. Labels essentially dismiss; just as a painting gets labelled "Impressionist", "Cubist" or some other style, so emotional experiences in general are often given a single title or designation which allows one to keep the experience at arm's length. 

   I feel it is important to clarify that the process of reifying an emotion--making it into a "thing"--often becomes a way of dismissing the nuanced process of experience itself. Meditation, for instance, can be experienced as a long period of dullness or pain, and can thus become associated with such feelings. This happens in spite of the fact that many emotions and physical sensations arise in meditation, some not even classifiable per se. Knowing the difference between an experience as a process and the "labels" we affix to experiences, is one way of breaking out of the prison or the mold of a label.

    Furthermore, even a singular emotional experience (if one such exists) is actually an intensely unique and context-rich state. It's hard to pin down an emotional state. "Boredom" is a good example of this. Sometimes what seems boring or empty is really just the state of mind that is rushing to do something else, or to experience something presumably more intense. Boredom is not a "pure" emotional state, because being bored is often paired with a specific craving or desire to do or be somewhere else. In other words, boredom has this underside of rushing toward something that isn't there or hasn't even arisen yet. It is a masked craving: a feeling of wanting something that won't materialize given the current conditions. If a person were to simply let go of this subtle craving or yearning, the boredom state has no place to stand.

   What's also tricky about boredom is that the label "bored" is itself boring! It doesn't explain anything, it doesn't go anywhere, and it demands something else that is not there. What place does this emotion have in a person's life, except to signal either an unrequited desire or perhaps an impossible requirement or demand? To relax these demands and desires is to dissolve the tightness and tension that comes with boredom.