This is the time to marshal up hope for the New Year.
Hope is wanting something to happen or be true, with a reasonable expectation that it will, but hope is no more than wishing. There is no magic in hope or wishing. What is needed, more than ever, in 2026 is faith, but faith itself is meaningless. What really counts is in whom we place our faith.
One-third of the world’s population, more than 2.6 billion people, place their faith in Jesus Christ. As Christians, they declare their love of God with all their heart, mind, and soul. Likewise, they declare their love for their neighbors as much as for themselves.
But human nature and Godly nature are seldom in harmony. In 2026, pray that Christians will act consistently with what they say. Taken from the Big Book, may Christians walk the walk and talk the talk. It would enrich feelings worldwide.
If you are like me, you wrote resolutions in the past, believed firmly in becoming a better person, but got occupied with fulfilling other obligations. You stopped making resolutions because you failed to keep them beyond a week or two. You did not become a better person. Disappointed, your self-regard dropped. It is difficult to ignore negative feelings until you discover how to distract yourself by staying busy.
Feelings may be redirected, suppressed, or placed unknowingly outside awareness, but like our avian pets, our feelings come home to roost. You may think your negative, unwanted feelings have passed, but they linger in your heart, your stomach, your back, or in any other part of your body or mind. They will haunt you particularly during your defenseless sleep.
In psychology and neuroscience, “emotions” and “feelings” are often used interchangeably, but let us differentiate them.
Emotions are involuntary, unconscious reactions to stimuli.
They trigger bodily changes, such as higher heart rate, adrenaline release, and facial expressions, to prepare the body for action.
These emotions are universal in humans (and many animals), brief in duration, and include fear, anger, joy, sadness, disgust, and surprise.
Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio defines emotions as the body’s immediate, visible responses—“energy in motion” that causes physical and behavioral changes.
Feelings, conversely, are how we consciously interpret and experience emotions.
They occur when the brain recognizes changes in the body caused by emotion, along with thoughts, memories, beliefs, context, and cultural factors.
Feelings are personal, vary among individuals in similar situations, last longer, and involve cognition.
Damasio defines feelings as “mental experiences of body states”—for example, you feel horror when your brain processes fear.
Keep the distinction between emotions and feelings in mind as we proceed to decode the new “structure of feeling.”
Love and hate are both highly charged emotions, with indifference serving as their true opposite. Brain scans reveal similar neural activity for romantic love and hate, which may explain why passionate relationships can quickly shift between the two.
To sum up, love and hate are not considered fundamental emotions. Love is generally intricate and long-lasting, whereas hate is a distinctly negative feeling. This ongoing debate arises because both emotions are complex and lack precise definitions.
Raymond Williams (1921–1988) was a leading Welsh cultural critic and theorist who made key contributions to cultural studies. Raised in a working-class family near the Welsh border, his background and his father’s role in the labor movement shaped his outlook.
“Structure of feeling,” a term by Raymond Williams, refers to the complex cultural experiences that inform art but are difficult to express in ordinary language. Williams preferred this term to “ideas” or “general life” because it conveys both a firm structure and subtle, intangible aspects of culture.
I use Williams’ term, “structure of feeling,” without its political affiliation, because it can help us understand what is happening around us and to us at an unprecedented acceleration.
Few object when we are said to live in “The Age of Rage.” More accurately, we live in The Age of Feelings. Antisemitism, for example, is rooted in feelings, devoid of reason. TV commercials are pitched at our feelings. Political fundraising is fundamentally about how the candidates make us feel.
The new structure of our feelings has surpassed the structure of reason, virtue, and divinity of our souls.
Feelings have become the Summum bonum, a Latin term meaning the ultimate good, introduced by Cicero (106 BC-43 BC) to describe the fundamental ethical aim that, if followed, leads to the best life. Over time, it has also come to mean the essence or metaphysical principle of Goodness, similar to Plato’s Form of the Good.
If we continue to welcome feelings over reason and virtue, pornography over marital fidelity, a common practice today, the American family, already downtrodden, will not survive.
During lengthy TV commercials, I switch to “Forensic Science,” nostalgically reliving my former career as a forensic psychiatrist, but it stirs up feelings, good and bad, that keep me out of sounder sleep.
If I watch my favorite TV Show, “All Creatures Great and Small,” I am inspired, feel as if I have been touched by a good sermon, and hunger for more episodes. In this case, the feelings motivate me to treat others kindly.
Join me in joyfully singing one of my favorite hymns as a birthday present for 2026: God made us, redeemed us, and never forsakes us.
All things bright and beautiful
Refrain:
All things bright and beautiful,
all creatures great and small,
all things wise and wonderful,
the Lord God made them all.
Each little flower that opens,
each little bird that sings,
he made their glowing colors,
he made their tiny wings. Refrain
The purple-headed mountain,
the river running by,
the sunset, and the morning
that brightens up the sky. Refrain
The cold wind in the winter,
the pleasant summer sun,
the ripe fruits in the garden,
he made them everyone. Refrain
He gave us eyes to see them,
and lips that we might tell
how great is God Almighty,
who has made all things well. Refrain
Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-1895) published in 1848.
Sing it from a thankful heart, with gusto, and the feeling will be REAL.
Happy New Year
Robert S. Brown, MD, PHD a retired Psychiatrist, Col (Ret) U.S. Army Medical Corps devoted the last decade of his career to treating soldiers at Fort Lee redeploying from combat. He was a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Education at UVA. His renowned Mental Health course taught the value of exercise for a sound mind.
