[Omnus]

It is entirely unremarkable that people should put "feeling" in italics in order to emphasize it, because it is precisely the thing gets handwavy non-explanations (like yours) from people who refuse to acknowledge the deep mystery (or "puzzle", if you want).

What is remarkable, to the point of comedy, is the reliability with which this refusal is accompanied by one or two sentence explanations that imply a miraculous end to the long, complex philosophical exploration of the mind-body problem that humanity has struggled with for millennia.

"They are processes in an organism, and we construct models of the self to help us get through the day" is one such meaningless explanation. You've answered nothing. You've done nothing. The problem of qualia? The unity problem? The knowledge problem?

The comparison with gravity was indeed unfair, but not in the way you think. It is unfair in that the problems of phenomenology and consciousness are much harder (see Knowledge Problem) because of their resistance to modeling (or any other kind of study that doesn't involve introspection).

To call "consciousness" and "feeling" folk terms and use that to dismiss incredibly simple and clear questions is the intellectual equivalent of tapping out. It's so simple: "what is the nature of the feelings themselves, apart from the dynamics of the system they are correlated with?"