You're splitting hairs on semantics.
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Originally Posted by cynthetiq
Letting your emotions happen and not acting upon them is tantamount to serenity.
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is the same thing as...
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Originally Posted by jinnkai
What I meant by mental control is having the clarity to recognize a building emotion, quickly decide on how you wish to express it (if at all) and act on that decision.
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And,
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Emotions themselves aren't good or bad. They just exist.
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Since you've used the personalization argument on me, here it is in return:
Cyn, as for emotion is concerned, just because you can't accept that certain emotions are inherently bad, that doesn't mean that everyone in the world needs to follow your method. You need to be open to the idea that while it's not for YOU and YOUR experience, it is and has to be a possibility that it is not that way for another human being.
Do you realize the redundancy of this argument? It can be used in any context to declare that the position is subjective and relevant only to the person speaking. I'd hope it would be assumed that statements made by someone are, in fact, applicable to them but not universally extensible.
Whether my language connotes universality or not, it is still up to the reader to decide whether it is truly applicable to their own unique situation.
On the argument itself, that emotions just "exist" and are not inherently bad or good, I (humbly) disagree. Anytime you discuss "good vs evil" its directly a philosophical argument, and I believe there is an a hierarchy of "good" when you're talking about emotions, rather than a line draw specifically at your response to them.
While you're content to draw the line as your actions alone being the purveyors of good or bad, I think that even FEELING certain emotions is bad. Under your construction, consistently feeling "anger" in response to a particulary offensive person would never be considered a bad thing. After all, they're just emotions and "feeling" them consistently could never be bad, right?
AnnoyingPerson says X, you feel anger. You decide to not act on that emotion.
AnnoyingPerson says X, you feel anger. You decide to not act on that emotion.
This continues ad nauseum without you ever deigning that there is a "bad" thing happening here. By making a conscious decision to NOT feel the anger in the future (by thickening your skin, perhaps) you avoid the entirely pointless loop above. This is a
good thing.
In short, your actions in response to emotions can certainly be bad or good, but so can continously allowing an emotion to surface. Bad emotions like anger, sadness, and envy can be avoided, and the necessity to even MAKE a decision regarding their appropriateness in a given situation is removed. Their utilitarian purpose (in my personal belief) is only as motivators and decision makers. We allow them to surface to make key decisions (should I trust this person, should I continue to associate with this person), etc, and we discard them. Why discard them so hastily? Because they're bad.
And, as an aside, I noticed that our abbreviated names (Cyn/Jinn) rhyme and it made me giggle in the middle of a really serious typing session. Bastard.