Look at any emotional conflict, either in your real life or in fiction, it doesn't matter. You'll find that people suck at understanding their own emotions. I don't think that comes as a surprise. But what strikes me is how difficult it seems to be for all of humanity to get a grasp on emotions. What I mean by that is the scientific frontier.
Do you know anything about endocrinology? Do you even know what that is? That's what I mean. I barely know anything about it. All I know is that it is a subbranch of medicine that is concerned with understanding the endocrine system, i.e., the physiological system that is responsible for our emotions. But that's as far as my knowledge takes me.
I'm not very knowledgeable about medicine. I have a bit of an interest in neuroscience, so I know a bit more than average about that, but otherwise I know just as much as the next person. Still, I think I know a few things about anatomy, how various organs of the human body work, how a cell is structured, how reproduction works and the common knowledge about various diseases and conditions, as well as some common drugs. Just the usual stuff. The mitochondria are the cell's powerhouse and such things. Yet, I hadn't even heard about endocrinology before I tried to look into it a bit, and I know absolutely no facts about it. I've heard some stuff about hormones, but that information is unreliable and contradictory and I've certainly not heard it in the context of endocrinology.
I have only two theories: Either endocrinology is a very niche field that almost nobody does any research in and nobody cares about it, or there is absolutely no good science communication in that field. I mean, I tried to read a bit on Wikipedia and I looked at a few papers, but that stuff is so far from accessible, it's not even funny. I'm interested in all kinds of sciences and I'm willing to push myself through a medical paper if I really want to, until I understand at least half of it. But that endocrinology stuff is hard. I've not found any good resources on it, whatsoever.
I feel like there's some irony in this. It's almost as if people don't *want* to understand emotions. And I also have a theory of why that is. I think people mystify their emotions. Some people even think that emotions are truly what makes us human and almost worship them spiritually. People don't want their emotions be caused by physiological processes and know that they can be modelled by differential equations because that takes the mystery away. It's like a magician explaining their tricks.
But I've long stopped believing in the magic behind our emotions. I'm sure that our endocrine system is just a complex machine, comprised of many dynamical systems that follow the laws of physics. It should be possible to find some models for it. And I would love to know some of them. I want to know the mathematics behind it. I want to simulate it on my computer. But I want to do that without having to quit my job and enrolling in endocrinology.
I think humanity could gain a lot if we understood these things better. But for now, I guess humanity is too fond of being a mystery.