I have never advocated ignoring emotions or being emotion free. When making a decision to react to any given situation everything, including emotions, should be put on the pro/con list. Then a decision should be made. Usually the reactive emotion simply goes away once a situation has been rationaly analized. For example, if someone calls me an idiot, the first emotional response is to be hurt then angry. If the name caller was a two year old, suddenly those emotional responses become unnecessary and therefore counterproductive. Recognizing that an emotion is irrelavant is not the same as repression.
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Wow. If everyone were in more "control" of themselves, do you realize there'd be no art whatsoever? Maybe that's okay for you and Spock, but I'd rather be dead than live in a world without emotional expression.
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Again emotional control does not mean zero emotion, it just means not allowing it to be the sole determinate in your decision making. I am a profesional artist and a very creative person, even by artists standards. My self mastery doesn't keep me from being creative and enjoying art and the many beautiful things in the world, I believe it helps me. I don't have to sit around waiting for my environment to generate an emotion in me to capture a mood in my paintings.