By Kyra-lin Hom

Emotion is a strange monster. We villainize rage as a bad temper, typecast bouts of extreme sadness as depression, and label boredom as an attention deficit. Yet we also revere heroic vengeance, dramatize traumatic grief and exemplify the arrogance and impatience of genius. I'm not speaking medically, I'm talking about our attitudes as layman, civilians, non-medical personnel and, particularly, the producers and consumers of media. All of this sends a very mixed message.

We're taught, especially in the Northwest, that emotions are to be contained. We are allowed to feel happy, inspired, interested and even a little upset, but negative emotions are not socially acceptable. True anger, jealousy, anxiety, regret, despondency – you get the idea – are viewed more as indulgences with social consequences. Or to be more precise, the expression of such 'negative' emotions is ill-desired by our social standards. That's one of the reasons violent and melodramatic books, TV shows, movies and games are so popular. They are cathartic, vicarious experiences for us civilized folk.

The crazy thing is, if emotions were really so bad they wouldn't still be around. Or at least that's the evolutionary perspective. Turns out that the reasonable expression of these so-called negative emotions is actually vital. We need them to function together.

This is loosely accurate, but think of emotion as a kind of biologically imperative form of communication. For example, according to Psychology Today, “Anger results when we feel undervalued.” Therefore, the healthful expression of anger (as opposed to letting the feeling build) in many situations remedies this feeling in a constructive way. Those who express anger like this are “seen as higher in status, more competent, and more credible.”

On the opposite end of the spectrum, new research into depression by the McMaster University and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health is opening the debate on whether this debilitating condition is actually as dysfunctional as we've previously believed. Depression caused by environmental factors (i.e. life issues) might be the body's way of zeroing in on the problem. (It should be noted that this research does not address biologically caused depression.)

They theorize that depression puts you into a deep thought loop called analytic rumination (AR) and cuts you off from distracting stimuli so that you can analyze the heck out of your situation and come up with the best solution. This is in line with findings that therapy and expressive writing help people climb out of situationally-induced depression, while avoidance can just dig a deeper hole.

Think about it. We are highly social creatures and yet not a hive mind. That means somehow we have to constantly regulate all of our relationships and interactions – even those we don't think about. I am currently interacting with everyone who comes in contact with this column. If the only way to do this was through dry verbal or written communication, well...we wouldn't exist because grunts would have only gotten our cavemen ancestors so far.

As for the idea that we can evolve beyond emotion, that's just not my thing. There is a place in every society for the sage, the monk, the old man of the mountain, but we can't all be like that nor should we. Emotion isn't the bogeyman. It's like Godzilla, a benevolent monster that's going to do its thing whether we will it or not. And working with it rather than against results in a lot less damage.