I think that’s more a critique of the modern caricature of stoicism than of Stoicism itself. Classical Stoicism isn’t about suppressing emotions. It’s about understanding your emotions, examining where they come from, and choosing how you respond rather than being ruled by them.

▲

confounder 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I think this is the most concisely accurate description of Stoicism I've yet seen; well done.

▲

iammjm 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Also it's about learning to distinguish between stuff we can influence vs stuff we cannot. Like I cannot influence if the sun rises tomorrow or not, so there's not point in worrying about it

▲

tetha an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

And now that I've read that the second time, this is very close to various kinds of therapy.

For example, anxiety exists and sometimes occurs, and it means parts of me are trying to be very careful and precise about something. This can be a problem at times if it overcomes you, but it can also be leveraged into a strength once you figure why it's flaring up at the moment.

Another example, travel used to be a nuisance, but now I've setup and continue refining some packing and preparation checklists for trips of varying length. Now it's a big no-brainer to be well-prepared for a short work-trip and I'm usually very calm about it.

▲

raffael_de 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

understanding, examining and choosing are all thinking based. and that's why stoicism isn't really working well for humans. emotions are neuropsychologically lower level than thoughts/logic/ratio. having said that, lectures about stoicism might well be excellent instructions for language models on how to handle communication with humans.

	▲	matwood an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Part of practicing Stoicism is to bring emotions up to the understanding, examining, and choosing level. You still have emotions, but you don't let them control you. I love JiuJitsu because many parts of it are like microcosms of life. The first time someone lays on you and you feel like you can't breath, you panic. That's an emotion. After a few times you realize you can breath and eventually you will feel the panic and instead of succumbing, it'll wash past you. By practicing feeling emotions, especially negative ones like being uncomfortable over and over, eventually they move into your higher level thinking and no longer control you. You absolutely still have them, but your reaction to them has changed.
	▲	SAI_Peregrinus 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It's more to separate the feeling from the reaction to the feeling by a layer of understanding & examination. Feel first, understand the feeling, examine whether the feeling is appropriate for the situation that caused it, determine how to react, react. It's an OODA loop applied to one's own emotions: Observe the feeling, Orient on the situation, Decide on a response, Act as decided. If you pre-decide to always suppress any reaction you're missing the point. Stoicism is quite similar to modern Cognitive Behavior Therapy. If you just react without thinking you'll often react to your learned habits rather than the actual situation at hand.

▲

4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[deleted]