Law of transfer - of pieces and feelings

Heres another hair brained quasi-theory (I say quasi thoery cos its mostly based on one-off instances that i like to generalise and call reliable data!):

My line of work (manufacturing) involves a lot of numbers; Specifically, pages and pages of spreadsheets giving breakups in every which way, of quantities of pieces that are circulating in different departments at all times. These spread sheets, detailed and specific as they may be, still cause a whole lot of confusion cos by the time the tally is put down, pieces have moved from one dept. to the other and you end up doing the whole thing again after a few hours. (Yes, there may be some serious problems in the systems at my work but thats not the point right now!) So what i usually end up doing after all that research is looking at the overall figure at the end and obtain whatever little piece of mind by knowing that whatever the breakup, atleast i know for sure that x number (the total) is somewhere in the building.

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Ever since ive been in this introspective mode (i think blogs and inertia do that to you) ive come into contact with more and more people who all seem to be down on some issue or the other (notice how the above line somehow sounds credible while being no more than a general statement!) which sort of made me wonder where all the happy people are? (incase youre one of them, go to http://www.listofgoodthings.blogspot.com/ and pen some thoughts down so that we not-quite-as-happy folk can take some pointers!)

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So when the whole spreadsheet business started getting too much, coinciding with my awareness of the low / bored atmosphere around me, i began to wonder if there are some parallels to be drawn between the two.

What if there's a set amount (one final figure) of emotion - happy, sad, angry, peaceful, jealousy, pride, shame etc etc in the world. Would that mean that everyday these emotions are just being transfered from one person to the other? (if theres a total set number to be shared, anything increased for one person will cause a reduction by the same amount for the other) Flowing in and out from one another in one continuous motion.

If so, imagine the process. Imagine that every moment that you are getting happy, sad, angry, ecstatic, depressed, theres someone else, somewhere offsetting what youre feeling. Seems like a good deal no?

However, while further playing with the hypothesis, it also brings to light that while our "quota" of emotions remains fixed, more and more people are added to the equation every day. Would that imply that people would begin to feel lesser and lesser (smaller slices of the "pie") ? Im already aware of the general desensitization that we have undergone, and we blame it on T.V etc. Could the real reason be that theres simply less feelings available in the "emotion-pool?" Or maybe it means that the rate of transfer between people will be slower (like an overloaded internet server) or faster (like 8 players using multi-taps playing ea fifa 06 on PS2)? Thereby meaning that depending on the case, people will either be explosively bi-polar or victims of long periods of joy or depression. (not quite sure whether people experiencing long periods of joy can be described as victims. or can they?)

Maybe thats why people refer to older times as better times? (More for everyone)

That would definately explain why countries with big populations seem less happy or more numb (on the whole).

I suppose most sports and competitions show a clear transfer of happy and sad (think of Italy and France in the Fifa world cup finals 06). Its easy to see it there cos the transfer is instant.

Maybe, things like jokes came about to artificially boost the flow of happy. If you really think about it, whenever you go out or meet someone or talk, you always share the funny stuff. Maybe we all are just trying to put more funny and good out into the "system" in the hope that it'll come back to us sooner too. Sort of like a ripple effect. Is that where "what goes around comes around" came from?

Once again, i seem to have opened up a whole lot of questions that i'm too lazy to elaborate on.

At first i thought this theory (like my daily production reports) would give me a sense of security as it implies that whatever may be the current situation, somewhere out there, is your share of happiness thats gonna flow into your life. Nothing more, nothing less (cos the bottom line will not change) However, instead, its made me more aware that in between all the fluid times of good, is gonna be long periods of bad just cos youre experiencing someone elses share of happy! and we all want to be happy now!

All i know is that next time i'm feeling sad, i'm gonna be on the look out for the joker whose stolen my share of happiness!!