There are no higher emotions/values

[Angrboda]

I would metaphorically describe positive emotions as some divine life force or flow of divine energy within our conscious being.  This divine life force makes us alive on the inside since it makes our whole entire reality perceived as beautiful, good, and worth living for.  In other words, it transforms our whole entire reality into something amazing, beautiful, and great.  No other mental state can do this.  All other mental states in of themselves are "dead" and "empty" since they do not do this.  I would also describe positive emotions as being a divine inner light or inner fruit.  If you hear the word 'fruitful," then that means filled with inner positivity.  It means you are in a mental state where you truly experience positivity in your life which is no different than, again, saying that you are perceiving things from a positive perspective (i.e. perceiving things as joyful, beautiful, and good). 

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When you feel positive emotions, it's as though you are filled with the force of the light and, when you feel negative emotions such as misery and despair, it's as though you are filled with the force of darkness.  The goal is to become the being of light by pursing the force of light to make your life beautiful and to avoid the inner darkness which makes your life bad, horrible, and disgusting.  When we lose our ability to feel positive emotions, it's as though we have become dead on the inside since we lose that force of light within us.  Also, songs have two aspects to them which would be the lyrics and the emotion.  If you just had the lyrics without the emotion, then those words would be spoken like a machine.  These words need something more in order for them to possess true beauty, joy, and greatness.  They require a profoundly beautiful, joyful, divine life force to them. 

This life force breathes the power of joy, beauty, and greatness to these lyrics.  That life force would be the positive emotions.  Lyrics also require the force of darkness in order for them to possess the true power of misery, despair, hate, and suffering.  That force of darkness would be the negative emotions.  But if you had the emotion without the lyrics or let's pretend the lyrics were gibberish, then those songs would still possess the power of beauty, joy, misery, suffering, etc.  This proves here that it's about the emotion and not just the words alone.  If we as human beings lived our lives by words alone without our emotions, then we would be like droids.  We would be dead on the inside and words, our character, intellect, and morality alone would not bring our lives any real value.  Our emotions are that higher power or force within us that brings the value to life in our lives.

Intellect, morality, and character is just words, intentions, and ideas in our minds.  None of these things can allow me to perceive/experience the sheer beauty and joy my positive emotions have brought my life and neither can it allow me to experience what I've experienced through my miserable struggles.  Those hopeless and miserable states I've been through were such horrible states that no words, ideas, etc. can allow me to experience something so horrible.  Lastly, as for your question, people can act as though certain things are real and claim these things are real.  For example, people have acted and claimed Thor was real.  But that doesn't mean Thor was real.  So, just because people act as though value independent of positive emotions is real and claim it's real does not mean it's actually real.  You cannot trust a person's claim just because they act as though it's real and claim it's real.  That's the reason why I cannot trust people who claim that they perceived their lives as something beautiful and great despite their misery and inability to feel positive emotions.

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