Summarizing Seneca's philosophy, he talks about not letting you emotions get to you, and controlling you wishes when the are going to hit the "wall" of reality.
For an example, Seneca talks a lot about anger, and how you can be very angry because of one specific reason, but not realizing that you could be over reacting. He says that in calmer moments we realize that we were exaggerating. In another words, he is saying that "it's not the end of the world" so we should not let our emotions take over us and control us, instead we should be the ones controlling our emotions. "... according to which anger results not from an uncontrollable eruptions of the passions, but from a basic ( and correctable ) error of reasoning.... If we could only change out ideas we will change our propensity to anger."
He also says that one of the reason we get angry for different reasons is because we compared those situations to what is "normal" for us. "We aren't overwhelmed by anger whenever we desire, only when we believe ourselves entitled or obtain it."
He also says that money ( being wealthy or poor ) has nothing to do with controlling your anger. He uses an example of a slave dropping something at a party and the slave's "owner" got so mad and angry by the sound of the thing dropping that he order the slave to be thrown into a pool of lampreys.
I totally agree with Seneca, I think that anger can literally take control over your mind and body, that you can do things that you could regret later on. For an example, if you can't find your favourite pair of jeans, and you get so angry that you scream and punch the wall, and after a couple minutes, when you are calm you realize you just broke your hand and your sister was wearing your jeans, and you just regret it so much, because you could've think things a little better and not over react over such a small thing.
In conclusion, I think if we all try applying Seneca's philosophy of trying to control our emotions before reacting, in our life, we could all make better decisions.
I like the way you describe how powerful anger really is, it is true. Anger is one of those things that makes you act totally irrationally. It is easy to think of anger as a bad thing, and mostly it is, but it is also an expression of how passionate you were about whatever made you SO mad. Anger is one of the FEW things that can come over you like a spell, along with love. I think Seneca has useful insight on how to handle anger, and if we balance it with feelings of love before acting out, we may live in a very different, more peaceful world.
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ReplyDeleteI totally agree with that anger can take control over your mind and body. And I like how you give an example with everyday thing that make people easier to understand. But I think anger somehow do have to do with money. Because I think rich people tends to have more power which makes people more emotionally.
I agree that when we get angry we act out of impulse beofre thinking about our actions. I also know that when your angry you say certain things you dont mean but the thing is, you would never had said it if you didnt think about it in the slightest. Do you think that his explanation about anger is relatively acurate in some sense?
ReplyDeleteI agree with your idea, sometimes emotion is really hard to control. Keep calm don't let angry control ourself. Angry not only hurt yourself, but also will hurt people around you. Before your get angry just calm for one min, you will not be that angry anymore.
ReplyDeleteI love your example because it completely helps the reader understand the exact feeling of anger you are talking about. It is really interesting to me how people get so overwhelmed by their anger that they forget that they may be doing something to harm themselves and other people. I wonder what causes this anger
ReplyDeleteYour post really zeroed in on something I think we are all familiar with, i.e. anger. While it's easier to have 20/20 hindsight when it comes to anger, do you think that Seneca provides the right kind of tools to help us when anger begins to emerge within us?
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