El laberinto sentimental

We are emotional intelligences. Nothing interests us more than feelings, because they are what makes us happy or unhappy. They are the most intimate thing about us and the most alien to us. We act to maintain a state of mind, to change it, to achieve it. We do not feel what we would like to feel. We are depressed when we would like to be happy. We are driven by envy, fear, jealousy, and hopelessness. We would like to be generous, brave, have a sense of humor, experience intense love, and be free from boredom, but we are shaken by unexpected or unwanted emotions. Even a feeling as calm as tranquility "invades" us. The history of our culture could be read as an attempt to answer a single question: what do we do with our feelings? The author believes that, above all, we must know them. To do so, he delves into the labyrinth of sentiment, with the collaboration of the most current psychology and the philosophy of all times. He finds violent passions and calm affections, close feelings and exotic emotions. It studies how children build their emotional world, and how adults find themselves living in a house that is perhaps uninhabitable.