Kama Muta is A New Name for An Old Emotion
While the emotion is part of our human experience, this is the first time it’s been scientifically studied.
We’ve spent the last few centuries hyper-focused on scientifically understanding our shared, objective, external world to the detriment of our individual subjective experiences, which are significantly harder to measure or even describe. In some ways, we know more about our planet than ourselves.
Take our emotions, for example. It seems like a self-explanatory topic; after all, everyone experiences joy, fear, and sadness — but those are only three of many. When we look closer, it’s clear that emotions are complicated and can be tricky to identify and decipher. In fact, sometimes we feel emotions we can’t name, and maybe that’s because there isn’t one, or at least not a well-known one — like kama muta.
What is Kama Muta?
As is often the case with emotions, kama muta is challenging to put into words. So, rather than trying to describe it, I’ll share a story Alan Fiske, a psychological anthropologist at The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), told David Robson of The Guardian about a lost kitten that might allow you to feel it for yourself.
“If you saw [a lost kitten]…
