I’m trying to decide to what extent this applies to my lived experience, but finding it difficult to distinguish between maintaining a healthy tranquility and cultivating habitual impassivity. My intuition is that I’ve had both experiences, but the internal feedback for either is very similar. Both seem to involve putting a functional amount of distance between yourself and your emotional response, and—in my experience—the healthy habit does reinforce itself, just like the negative version. But then, sometimes, I find myself noticing the lack of an emotional response in certain situations where I used to have one. Internally, it’s difficult to say whether it’s truly absent or simply impotent, but whether through healthy practice or perverse self-denial it’s lost its power over me.
Neither seems to stem from a particularly unhealthy cognitive locus. I wouldn’t say it’s maladaptive, for instance, to watch somebody lose their temper and subsequently decide you’d rather not embody that particular vice. Although it’s probably pernicious to foster latent contempt towards anybody who fails to exhibit perfect self-control. So, if the impetus and effects are similar then what are we left with? Because I really do feel like there’s a difference, and it’s one that feels obvious in hindsight. Unfortunately, “deep down in your secret heart of hearts you’ll just know” isn’t a very satisfying heuristic and, as I mentioned, it only seems obvious in hindsight.
For anybody who understands this better than I do, the question is: Can you articulate what internal heuristics you’re using to ensure that you can practice healthy stoicism without accidentally running over into unhealthy repression?
I’m trying to decide to what extent this applies to my lived experience, but finding it difficult to distinguish between maintaining a healthy tranquility and cultivating habitual impassivity. My intuition is that I’ve had both experiences, but the internal feedback for either is very similar. Both seem to involve putting a functional amount of distance between yourself and your emotional response, and—in my experience—the healthy habit does reinforce itself, just like the negative version. But then, sometimes, I find myself noticing the lack of an emotional response in certain situations where I used to have one. Internally, it’s difficult to say whether it’s truly absent or simply impotent, but whether through healthy practice or perverse self-denial it’s lost its power over me.
Neither seems to stem from a particularly unhealthy cognitive locus. I wouldn’t say it’s maladaptive, for instance, to watch somebody lose their temper and subsequently decide you’d rather not embody that particular vice. Although it’s probably pernicious to foster latent contempt towards anybody who fails to exhibit perfect self-control. So, if the impetus and effects are similar then what are we left with? Because I really do feel like there’s a difference, and it’s one that feels obvious in hindsight. Unfortunately, “deep down in your secret heart of hearts you’ll just know” isn’t a very satisfying heuristic and, as I mentioned, it only seems obvious in hindsight.
For anybody who understands this better than I do, the question is: Can you articulate what internal heuristics you’re using to ensure that you can practice healthy stoicism without accidentally running over into unhealthy repression?