Halfway Between Depression and Euphoria

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Grant. My name is John Furter. I’m calling from Bismarck, North Dakota.

Hi, John. Welcome to the show.

Hello, John. What can we do for you?

So I have a word search question. I am enrolled in an online program for veterans who have gotten out of the military or have returned from a deployment. And that program works with processing emotions, things like that.

Well, one of the things it talked about was that we’re always feeling emotions or feeling feelings, and we’re working on trying to identify those. And the emotion I can’t seem to identify is what I’m calling middle emotion. And so I basically put all of our emotions on a timeline from 1 to 10, 1 being clinical depression, something like that, 10 being complete euphoria. But I can’t figure out what number five would be. If you are dead center in the middle, what would be the word for number five?

And I actually have, there’s a peer mentor program on that program. And I chatted with somebody on there and we tried to come up with some words. And one of the words he came up with was insouciant, which I really liked, but I had to look it up because I wasn’t familiar with it. And the definition was free from worry or anxiety. And I was like, yeah, that still doesn’t seem quite right. And so after I did that for kind of searched around for that for a little while, I figured I’d give you guys a call and kind of figure out and see if you guys had any ideas.

Yeah, I agree that insouciant isn’t really the right word. To me, it’s a little more about carefree, even when you should have care. Insouciant isn’t really that neutral middle word. The other word that he came up with was also apathy. But I was like, typically apathy is associated more with the depression side of it. I was like, so that’s a little bit more down towards that one side. So it’s a tough word to come up with.

And you don’t want to use a word like normal because everyone’s normal is different, right?

Correct.

What’s wrong with neutral? Neutral is actually not a bad word. Not a word I typically would associate with an emotion. But that could work. The other one I was thinking of was the word zen.

Z-E-N?

Yeah. Because the way I look at it is it’s kind of one of those things where as soon as you identify the emotion or that you’re feeling it, you’re not feeling it anymore.

Yeah. Another one you might try is affectless, although it’s a little jargony. Your affect is your demeanor, your emotions, what’s happening with your composure. And so affectus means you are neither one thing nor another. You’re without affect.

I think of affect as what’s projected. You know, like you talk about somebody with a flat affect.

Right.

So it’s all about what is seen rather than what is felt.

Yeah.

That’s my sense of it, but I don’t know. I do like neutral. That was one of the first words I wrote down.

We’re really talking about the middle or the median, right? Because your really negative isn’t the same as my really negative, and your really positive isn’t the same as my really positive. Even our middle, our neutral isn’t going to be the same. We each have a different emotional range.

Right.

It’s your five. And I don’t think that everybody’s would be the same, but I think the word for it would be the same. I mean, somebody’s sad is not the same as somebody else’s sad. Somebody’s happy is not the same as somebody else’s happy. But, I mean, each person has a happy, each person has a sad.

Right.

I would also argue against the word zen, which was one you suggested. Zen has got the religious and spiritual connotations that I’m not sure apply here. If we want something a little more clinical and direct, Zen isn’t going to work.

Right.

Yeah, I mean, like I said, I’ve just been kind of searching through words and looking here and there to see what I could find. And it’s been a tough one to come up with.

I’ll tell you what we’ll do, John. We’ll throw this out to our listeners and see what they come up with.

All right.

Perfect. We appreciate your call, John. Thank you for the thoughtful question.

Bye-bye.

If you’ve got a word for John, what is the name for the middle emotion? Exactly halfway between very negative and very positive. Let us know, 877-929-9673. Or email words@waywordradio.org or tell us on Twitter @wayword.