Taking control of your emotions
‘To be ruled by your emotions is to act as all the worst measures of humanity; sometimes as a tyrant, sometimes as a coward, as a sycophant, a thief, an abuser and so much more.’
In the world we live in, it does not take long to find someone who has not grown up. For instance, people in their 40s who still throw tantrums in shops or restaurants because of a minor inconvenience. I imagine we’ve all seen this happen – people who seem to think the world revolves around them and who have no impulse or emotional control, who let themselves become angry easily and unnecessarily. To me, anger should only be shown when strictly necessary; and it is rare for anger to be necessary. How does shouting at a problem help to fix it and what use is intimidating a cashier for something beyond their control?
An adult should have measure – they should be in control of themselves and acutely aware of what is outside their own jurisdiction. I disagree with the emerging orthodoxy of ‘freeing’ emotions, of letting them fall out into the world around you with no regard for what they are or the effects they could have. There are appropriate times where emotions can be shown and appropriate people to show them to but certain emotions should rarely be expressed. To express rage in a public place amongst strangers, for example, is a deeply selfish thing to do in most cases. It is unpleasant, it scares people and it has no purpose; it achieves nothing. I think an adult understands that they are separate from the emotions swirling around them, they are a rational thing that need not bow to this feeling or that rush of chemicals. That is why children throw tantrums, because they see their emotions as what they are, as ‘them’, and see no reason why they should not unleash the full force of ‘them’ with all their selfish desires, unjustified anger, bitterness and greed onto the world.
To be ruled by your emotions is to act as all the worst measures of humanity; sometimes as a tyrant, sometimes as a coward, as a sycophant, a thief, an abuser and so much more.
The most immoral thing someone can do is to let themselves out, to act as a robber baron to the world around them. Some would say that this approach creates loneliness and bars us from creating connections in the world, and to this I would say two things. Firstly, the kind person is not always kind because they feel no other emotion, but because kindness is the only emotion they will let the world see. I have no problem with expressing love, but to have that expression followed swiftly by anger destroys the fragile and beautiful thing that hung in the air only seconds previously. I do not agree with the idea that all emotions must be expressed, or they will somehow build up as if a fleeting abstract concept like anger was some kind of liquid. We are sovereigns in ourselves, we do not need to do everything our body tries to coerce us into doing.
My second point is that as living beings we are inherently divisions of one. We are individuals, inalienably separate from everything around us. We are all one consciousness, and we are fundamentally alone. All that is us is private, and it was only with the invention of language that we could put a small fraction of that to others as pale imitation of the real thing. I say that we must accept that we are alone, and find strength in that.
