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Probably an unpopular perspective here,but, I look at feelings as something that must be understood with applied wisdom. Feelings can be extremely deceptive,an

Probably an unpopular perspective here,but, I look at feelings as something that must be understood with applied wisdom. Feelings can be extremely deceptive,and self-deception is the worst kind. One should completely distrust and be hostile towars a "feeling" until one is confident he/she understands why the feeling exists and is the way it is. To add on that,we should strive to make conscious and intentional decisions, making sure we understand our own intent. I am not saying emotions are bad or it's bad to say "I feel ..." But rather to know why you feel that way and if you make a decision based on that feeling,make sure to be conscious of that why behind the feeling.

oldandtired 8y ago
An alternate way of saying this is that "feelings are not smart". A very common refrain today is "follow your heart" or follow the path that is derived from your feelings. Instead of looking at the consequences of your choices, just go where you feel good. We have just been through a funeral for a friend where the feelings of grief have not been tempered by thoughtful consideration. This has lead to words being said that should not have been as they have long term consequences for the surviving family members (especially the children). I am not saying that there is anything wrong about feelings, just don't let them be the director of your decisions.
coldtea 8y ago
>Feelings can be extremely deceptive,and self-deception is the worst kind. One should completely distrust and be hostile towars a "feeling" until one is confident he/she understands why the feeling exists and is the way it is. The same is true for reasoning. It's just a axiomatic system whose results depend on the starting axioms and inputs. People (and countries and organisations) use reasoning, information, and even numerical facts, to come to any conclusion they like, just as well as they use feelings. And at least feelings don't mask the fact that they're based on a whim.
- maroonblazer 8y ago
  If you had instead quoted >I look at feelings as something that must be understood with applied wisdom. then I would agree with you. As written though it's a false equivalency. With reasoning you lay your cards on the table for everyone, including yourself, to inspect and challenge, including the axioms. Feelings don't provide the same affordance.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >With reasoning you lay your cards on the table for everyone, including yourself, to inspect and challenge, including the axioms. Feelings don't provide the same affordance. The problem is that with reasoning you can build whole chains on nothing more than skewed data and bad axioms that you also picked because of feelings. That it's "laid on the table for everyone" is little consolation -- for one, because the cards are usually so intricately arranged that nobody or few will be bothered to follow them through. It's like those saying "it's open source, so you can fix it yourself", ignoring the huge domain knowledge, programming skills, time, and effort required. But with reasoning it can be even worse, because you can both skew the data and axioms as you like (as per your interests/feelings), and still pretend to the masses that they're perfect fine because they're based on "reasoning" / "science" / "statistics", etc. Take the WMDs for example. In Ancient Athens they'd just say (as they did in many occasions): "There's this city-state, it's disobedient to our rule, or has resources we want, we should loot it". In 21st century they say: "Our experts say they have such and such WMDs, and thus this and that, so would should invade and prevent them". The first is a feeling (or a will). People can vote for or against it. The second is presented as a reasoned argument based on facts, which nobody of the masses can really verify (and none did, before the fact).
    - maroonblazer 8y ago
      >The first is a feeling (or a will). People can vote for or against it. The second is presented as a reasoned argument based on facts, which nobody of the masses can really verify (and none did, before the fact). It is verifiable though, at least in principle. WMDs either exist or they do not. Feelings have no comparable feature.
nine_k 8y ago
This is a well-known approach, though expressed a bit bluntly. Both Buddhists and Stoics explored this question deeply, and came to similar recommendations, and practical approaches to not being ruled by your feelings while also being at peace with them.
- westoncb 8y ago
  Except for: > One should completely distrust and be hostile towars a "feeling" ... Being mindful of feelings and distrusting/hostile are two very different things, and I cannot recommend the latter (nor have I seen any Buddhist literature do so).
callmemaeby 8y ago
This reminds of a tweet I saw once that always stuck with me. Basically said your feelings about a situation are always valid but your perception of the situation isn't always right.
sjayasinghe 8y ago
I'd go even further and apply the same level of distrust towards other aspects of the mind apart from feeling. Feeling, perception, intention, and consciousness all work together to create deception.
- charlchi 8y ago
  Personally the more disciplined and conscious I am of my senses and feelings, the easier it becomes to enjoy them without too much guided thinking.
bengotow 8y ago
> One should completely distrust and be hostile towards a "feeling" until one is confident he/she understands why the feeling exists and is the way it is. I get the impression this is a very common sentiment in the engineering community, actually - I was raised this way. In my family, step one of "digesting" a feeling was always understanding why you felt it. Someone told me recently that "your feelings do not have to make sense to be valid and action-worthy", and I was stunned — all these years no-one had told me. It is immensely true. If you insist on understanding your feelings before taking them into account, I think it's easy to fall into the trap of disregarding ones you think you shouldn't have, or choosing not to act because rational beings rise above their feelings. There are also some feelings you may never understand, and you could spend years sitting around trying to grok them. It is perfectly valid (at least to me) to say "I made this decision because I felt this way at this time." No further explanation required.
- marmaduke 8y ago
  To continue that thought, intuition enters in engineering after several years: you see the work of someone else and think, “yuck.” Often, I then search for a reason and voice that instead of “yuck,” but it still starts with a feeling. This is relevant because when you’re hacking away, you can “feel” out the solution of a problem, instead of approaching it axiomatically (even if the latter is often useful)
- saiya-jin 8y ago
  This is a very subjective topic, but I have a different approach (coming from 37 years of experience with... me) - emotions are great. Spice of life, sometimes even meaning of life. Revel them. Enjoy them. Immense in them, both positive and negative (without one, there wouldn't be the other anyway). But - don't make important life decisions based purely on them. Never. If the emotion-based decision doesn't stand some simple test of logic, it most probably ain't a good one. I've seen many people making utterly bad choices in life that affected them negatively for the rest of their lives (ie wrong life partner, wrong place to settle etc.) just because they felt at that moment it was the right choice. From logical cold-hard-facts point-of-view, it clearly wasn't. Life of misery and regrets ensued. Emotions are finicky, tomorrow they can easily change (if I wanted to be snarky I could say that's the source of many men vs women misunderstandings but there is more to that topic). But that's me - this works for me very well. If a different approach works for you, long term, by all means stick to it.

oldandtired 8y ago

An alternate way of saying this is that "feelings are not smart". A very common refrain today is "follow your heart" or follow the path that is derived from your feelings. Instead of looking at the consequences of your choices, just go where you feel good. We have just been through a funeral for a friend where the feelings of grief have not been tempered by thoughtful consideration. This has lead to words being said that should not have been as they have long term consequences for the surviving family members (especially the children). I am not saying that there is anything wrong about feelings, just don't let them be the director of your decisions.

coldtea 8y ago

>Feelings can be extremely deceptive,and self-deception is the worst kind. One should completely distrust and be hostile towars a "feeling" until one is confident he/she understands why the feeling exists and is the way it is. The same is true for reasoning. It's just a axiomatic system whose results depend on the starting axioms and inputs. People (and countries and organisations) use reasoning, information, and even numerical facts, to come to any conclusion they like, just as well as they use feelings. And at least feelings don't mask the fact that they're based on a whim.

maroonblazer 8y ago
If you had instead quoted >I look at feelings as something that must be understood with applied wisdom. then I would agree with you. As written though it's a false equivalency. With reasoning you lay your cards on the table for everyone, including yourself, to inspect and challenge, including the axioms. Feelings don't provide the same affordance.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >With reasoning you lay your cards on the table for everyone, including yourself, to inspect and challenge, including the axioms. Feelings don't provide the same affordance. The problem is that with reasoning you can build whole chains on nothing more than skewed data and bad axioms that you also picked because of feelings. That it's "laid on the table for everyone" is little consolation -- for one, because the cards are usually so intricately arranged that nobody or few will be bothered to follow them through. It's like those saying "it's open source, so you can fix it yourself", ignoring the huge domain knowledge, programming skills, time, and effort required. But with reasoning it can be even worse, because you can both skew the data and axioms as you like (as per your interests/feelings), and still pretend to the masses that they're perfect fine because they're based on "reasoning" / "science" / "statistics", etc. Take the WMDs for example. In Ancient Athens they'd just say (as they did in many occasions): "There's this city-state, it's disobedient to our rule, or has resources we want, we should loot it". In 21st century they say: "Our experts say they have such and such WMDs, and thus this and that, so would should invade and prevent them". The first is a feeling (or a will). People can vote for or against it. The second is presented as a reasoned argument based on facts, which nobody of the masses can really verify (and none did, before the fact).
  - maroonblazer 8y ago
    >The first is a feeling (or a will). People can vote for or against it. The second is presented as a reasoned argument based on facts, which nobody of the masses can really verify (and none did, before the fact). It is verifiable though, at least in principle. WMDs either exist or they do not. Feelings have no comparable feature.

nine_k 8y ago

This is a well-known approach, though expressed a bit bluntly. Both Buddhists and Stoics explored this question deeply, and came to similar recommendations, and practical approaches to not being ruled by your feelings while also being at peace with them.

westoncb 8y ago
Except for: > One should completely distrust and be hostile towars a "feeling" ... Being mindful of feelings and distrusting/hostile are two very different things, and I cannot recommend the latter (nor have I seen any Buddhist literature do so).

callmemaeby 8y ago

This reminds of a tweet I saw once that always stuck with me. Basically said your feelings about a situation are always valid but your perception of the situation isn't always right.

sjayasinghe 8y ago

I'd go even further and apply the same level of distrust towards other aspects of the mind apart from feeling. Feeling, perception, intention, and consciousness all work together to create deception.

charlchi 8y ago
Personally the more disciplined and conscious I am of my senses and feelings, the easier it becomes to enjoy them without too much guided thinking.

bengotow 8y ago

> One should completely distrust and be hostile towards a "feeling" until one is confident he/she understands why the feeling exists and is the way it is. I get the impression this is a very common sentiment in the engineering community, actually - I was raised this way. In my family, step one of "digesting" a feeling was always understanding why you felt it. Someone told me recently that "your feelings do not have to make sense to be valid and action-worthy", and I was stunned — all these years no-one had told me. It is immensely true. If you insist on understanding your feelings before taking them into account, I think it's easy to fall into the trap of disregarding ones you think you shouldn't have, or choosing not to act because rational beings rise above their feelings. There are also some feelings you may never understand, and you could spend years sitting around trying to grok them. It is perfectly valid (at least to me) to say "I made this decision because I felt this way at this time." No further explanation required.

marmaduke 8y ago
To continue that thought, intuition enters in engineering after several years: you see the work of someone else and think, “yuck.” Often, I then search for a reason and voice that instead of “yuck,” but it still starts with a feeling. This is relevant because when you’re hacking away, you can “feel” out the solution of a problem, instead of approaching it axiomatically (even if the latter is often useful)
saiya-jin 8y ago
This is a very subjective topic, but I have a different approach (coming from 37 years of experience with... me) - emotions are great. Spice of life, sometimes even meaning of life. Revel them. Enjoy them. Immense in them, both positive and negative (without one, there wouldn't be the other anyway). But - don't make important life decisions based purely on them. Never. If the emotion-based decision doesn't stand some simple test of logic, it most probably ain't a good one. I've seen many people making utterly bad choices in life that affected them negatively for the rest of their lives (ie wrong life partner, wrong place to settle etc.) just because they felt at that moment it was the right choice. From logical cold-hard-facts point-of-view, it clearly wasn't. Life of misery and regrets ensued. Emotions are finicky, tomorrow they can easily change (if I wanted to be snarky I could say that's the source of many men vs women misunderstandings but there is more to that topic). But that's me - this works for me very well. If a different approach works for you, long term, by all means stick to it.