The Mystery of Moods

Theories on why our moods weirdly rise and fall, from the stars, to a mismatch in reality versus expectations, to the intersection of energy and tension

Back when I was in high school, a group of my friends went on a campout at a lake right outside my hometown. We all started in high spirits. We sat around the campfire roasting marshmallows and yukking it up like typical teenagers.

But the next morning, I woke up in a funk. I was peevish and sulking. I have no idea why.

My foul disposition must have been palpable because while I was sitting next to one of my friends by the morning fire, she told me, "You know, Brett, you're really moody."

It stung because she wasn't wrong.

I've always been moody. I still am.

I'll go weeks where I'll feel chipper and unflappable, but then one day I wake up "in a mood." I feel sour. I find myself in a funk. It's like a dark cloud just descends on me. Sometimes my change in mood is precipitated by a stressful event. But sometimes it arrives for seemingly no reason at all.

Then, just as randomly as the negative mood came on, it disappears.

I don't like being moody. It's dumb. It's one of my traits that I don't like about myself. So, I've spent over 20 years trying to understand it so that I can potentially wrest control of it.

And after reading and thinking about moods for two decades, I've learned that they're a mystery.

Even if the mercury in your own mercurialness doesn’t dip as dramatically as mine, you’ve probably experienced the curious nature of moods yourself. Some days you wake up feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed; you’re confident, focused, and optimistic about your prospects in life. Then by the next day, or even by the evening of the very same one, you’re feeling more down and apathetic and sure that things aren’t going to turn out.

Humans have been baffled by the mystery of moods since antiquity. The ancients thought that moods were influenced by the gods. Medieval and Renaissance thinkers believed the stars influenced them. People in the 1970s thought moods were governed by "biorhythms” that started at birth and rose and fell in predictable cycles. Modern scientists attribute their oscillations to neurotransmitters. Philosophers throughout history have given moods existential weight. None of them has ever fully solved the riddle of moods. But by surveying their attempts, we at least get a better map of the terrain and learn how to better live with our moods. Even the dumb ones.