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I'm 63 and for me the answer is simple: more self-awareness. I am aware of what thoughts my emotion is in response to. I am aware of how my emotions are cascadi

I'm 63 and for me the answer is simple: more self-awareness. I am aware of what thoughts my emotion is in response to. I am aware of how my emotions are cascading other emotions and triggering feelings based on memories of similar circumstances. I am aware of how my emotions are affecting the people around me and how their response is feeding back into my thoughts and feelings. Finally, with self-awareness comes the meta-cognition ability to debug and reprogram my thoughts and feelings. My emotions are often based on something that is not quite true, so stepping back and looking at truth based reality calms them. I developed this ability only recently. I honestly think I was sleepwalking through most of my life being driven to and fro by thoughts and feelings that were difficult to understand.

slver 5y ago
More reflection, sure. Experience. Humility. But also less hormones. Young people are hormone-driven action-reaction machines.
- faeyanpiraat 5y ago
  Everyone is just a machine
  - okareaman 5y ago
    Yes, we have become very efficient in doing things. What we are doing, we have become so efficient in doing that we don’t need any awareness to do it. It has become mechanical, automatic. We function like robots. We are not men yet; we are machines. That’s what George Gurdjieff used to say again and again, that man as he exists is a machine. He offended many people, because nobody likes to be called a machine. Machines like to be called gods; then they feel very happy, puffed up. Gurdjieff used to call people machines, and he was right. If you watch yourself you will know how mechanically you behave. http://www.pomyc.org/blog-details/55 http://www.pomyc.org/blog-details/55 The exact quote by Gurdjieff is worth reading. Kurt Vonnegut's "Breakfast of Champions" dealt with this theme in an extraordinary way. He created a character who was going mad because he felt he was living among robots. At last, his character finds an artist that had a "light" in him, a soul, and the character decides everything is ok. At this point Kurt Vonnegut inserts himself into the narrative (which struck me as extraordinary) and says that he decided not to kill himself because he wrote this story (his mother committed suicide.) This book also helped me become more self-aware.
  - nexuist 5y ago
    A machine more commonly known as an "animal" :)
  - monktastic1 5y ago
    Everyone can be described as machine-like if you apply that particular lens. From a first-person perspective I am pure consciousness operating a meat suit. You may argue that reductive materialism allows you to reduce my claim to one about matter, but the onus is on you to prove materialism -- which I suspect you'll be hard-pressed to do in an HN comment.
    - jgwil2 5y ago
      I mean, if you accept that the laws of physics are deterministic, don't you sort of have to accept materialism? I would think the onus would be on you to show a mechanism for the interaction between the physical and the "spiritual" (or whatever you want to call it). In other words, how does this pure consciousness affect things in a purely deterministic physical universe?
  - slver 5y ago
    But I said specifically "hormone-driven action-reaction machines."
- okareaman 5y ago
  I did a course of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and related therapies with young veterans and saw them benefit, although they probably couldn't tell you how it works.
nefitty 5y ago
What do you picture in your mind when you think about your emotions? For others, I imagine an aura, colored based on the emotion I’m sensing that they’re feeling. It’s like a light emanating from their body. Inside of myself, I imagine churning liquids vying for dominance at any specific moment. I think because emotions are so nebulous and not like gears or software programs, my visualization tracks well with how emotions work. For example, if I’m feeling especially elated, it’s like my body is filling with a deep gold that overwhelms any other emotion.
- okareaman 5y ago
  I don't visualize my emotions, although I respond emotionally to color
aledalgrande 5y ago
Agree, but you can only do that if you do the introspection work, like you did. I know some people in your age range who still react like a 20yo.
- fossuser 5y ago
  Yeah - there's some correlation with age just because you're forced to take in some inputs/experience just from existing. I think there are exceptions though in both directions related to how much you try to directly get better at this kind of thing. It's worth it I think - you're in your own head your entire life, might as well try to make it a nice place to be.
steve_adams_86 5y ago
I'm about half your age and I don't know much about anything but, I think I'd agree based on my experience so far. I realized a while back that I'm some sort of chemical soup and I don't know where my thoughts or emotions even originate from. I don't seem to produce them voluntarily – they just bubble up out of the silence inside me. I have some moment of control, though it doesn't seem very effective a lot of the time. However I fail or succeed appears to be largely determined by abilities I don't have much control over in the first place. I mean, how the hell can I read? Why am I able to speak and understand language? My heart keeps beating, my cells repair themselves, I somehow remember to breathe. I understand math, programming, but none of the internal mechanisms which make that possible. I've come to the conclusion that my emotions are something to observe a lot before allowing responses, to whatever degree I can accomplish that, because I don't truly understand where they came from or why later on, let alone in the moment. The truth I'm living is a very arbitrary and subjective one at all times. Like you say, these feelings and reactions are often based on "facts" that aren't really true anyways. Reality is a very thin veil over something I can hardly comprehend the physics or magic of. If I can manage to develop better temperance and courage to restrain my reactions and questions my thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, I think I'll be pretty content with that. The sense of sleepwalking through life is very apt. I've felt very alive, focused, and attuned to reality at many points in my life while being very much completely out of tune and dead to the rest of the world. I didn't know who I was, what was going on, anything. And I still don't. Here's to trying to figure it out I guess!
- okareaman 5y ago
  Your ideas are very much in line with Stoicism (I can't control the world, but I can control my reaction to it), the teachings of Jesus Christ (Matthew 6:25-34 lilies of the field), Buddha (Discourse on the Forms of Thought), ancient Hindu wisdom (lookup "Vāsanā" for starts) and modern Cognitive Behavior Therapy. Some people like to focus on one, but I have learned from them all.
  - martinmakesgame 5y ago
    I am currently in the process of making a game that focuses on these ideas. It's a 2D fishing, farming, mining and philosophy game. I would like to give people the opportunity to practice a calm and peaceful state of mind by knowing that as people we can choose our thoughts and how we feel. Just as people can get stronger physically with physical exercise, I believe that people can become better at responding, by choosing how they think and feel, rather than reacting to what happens. There may be no tears or laughter in the land of Vulcan but we can certainly feel more joy by choosing how we think and feel.

slver 5y ago

More reflection, sure. Experience. Humility. But also less hormones. Young people are hormone-driven action-reaction machines.

faeyanpiraat 5y ago
Everyone is just a machine
- okareaman 5y ago
  Yes, we have become very efficient in doing things. What we are doing, we have become so efficient in doing that we don’t need any awareness to do it. It has become mechanical, automatic. We function like robots. We are not men yet; we are machines. That’s what George Gurdjieff used to say again and again, that man as he exists is a machine. He offended many people, because nobody likes to be called a machine. Machines like to be called gods; then they feel very happy, puffed up. Gurdjieff used to call people machines, and he was right. If you watch yourself you will know how mechanically you behave. http://www.pomyc.org/blog-details/55 http://www.pomyc.org/blog-details/55 The exact quote by Gurdjieff is worth reading. Kurt Vonnegut's "Breakfast of Champions" dealt with this theme in an extraordinary way. He created a character who was going mad because he felt he was living among robots. At last, his character finds an artist that had a "light" in him, a soul, and the character decides everything is ok. At this point Kurt Vonnegut inserts himself into the narrative (which struck me as extraordinary) and says that he decided not to kill himself because he wrote this story (his mother committed suicide.) This book also helped me become more self-aware.
- nexuist 5y ago
  A machine more commonly known as an "animal" :)
- monktastic1 5y ago
  Everyone can be described as machine-like if you apply that particular lens. From a first-person perspective I am pure consciousness operating a meat suit. You may argue that reductive materialism allows you to reduce my claim to one about matter, but the onus is on you to prove materialism -- which I suspect you'll be hard-pressed to do in an HN comment.
  - jgwil2 5y ago
    I mean, if you accept that the laws of physics are deterministic, don't you sort of have to accept materialism? I would think the onus would be on you to show a mechanism for the interaction between the physical and the "spiritual" (or whatever you want to call it). In other words, how does this pure consciousness affect things in a purely deterministic physical universe?
- slver 5y ago
  But I said specifically "hormone-driven action-reaction machines."
okareaman 5y ago
I did a course of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and related therapies with young veterans and saw them benefit, although they probably couldn't tell you how it works.

nefitty 5y ago

What do you picture in your mind when you think about your emotions? For others, I imagine an aura, colored based on the emotion I’m sensing that they’re feeling. It’s like a light emanating from their body. Inside of myself, I imagine churning liquids vying for dominance at any specific moment. I think because emotions are so nebulous and not like gears or software programs, my visualization tracks well with how emotions work. For example, if I’m feeling especially elated, it’s like my body is filling with a deep gold that overwhelms any other emotion.

okareaman 5y ago
I don't visualize my emotions, although I respond emotionally to color

aledalgrande 5y ago

Agree, but you can only do that if you do the introspection work, like you did. I know some people in your age range who still react like a 20yo.

fossuser 5y ago
Yeah - there's some correlation with age just because you're forced to take in some inputs/experience just from existing. I think there are exceptions though in both directions related to how much you try to directly get better at this kind of thing. It's worth it I think - you're in your own head your entire life, might as well try to make it a nice place to be.

steve_adams_86 5y ago

I'm about half your age and I don't know much about anything but, I think I'd agree based on my experience so far. I realized a while back that I'm some sort of chemical soup and I don't know where my thoughts or emotions even originate from. I don't seem to produce them voluntarily – they just bubble up out of the silence inside me. I have some moment of control, though it doesn't seem very effective a lot of the time. However I fail or succeed appears to be largely determined by abilities I don't have much control over in the first place. I mean, how the hell can I read? Why am I able to speak and understand language? My heart keeps beating, my cells repair themselves, I somehow remember to breathe. I understand math, programming, but none of the internal mechanisms which make that possible. I've come to the conclusion that my emotions are something to observe a lot before allowing responses, to whatever degree I can accomplish that, because I don't truly understand where they came from or why later on, let alone in the moment. The truth I'm living is a very arbitrary and subjective one at all times. Like you say, these feelings and reactions are often based on "facts" that aren't really true anyways. Reality is a very thin veil over something I can hardly comprehend the physics or magic of. If I can manage to develop better temperance and courage to restrain my reactions and questions my thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, I think I'll be pretty content with that. The sense of sleepwalking through life is very apt. I've felt very alive, focused, and attuned to reality at many points in my life while being very much completely out of tune and dead to the rest of the world. I didn't know who I was, what was going on, anything. And I still don't. Here's to trying to figure it out I guess!

okareaman 5y ago
Your ideas are very much in line with Stoicism (I can't control the world, but I can control my reaction to it), the teachings of Jesus Christ (Matthew 6:25-34 lilies of the field), Buddha (Discourse on the Forms of Thought), ancient Hindu wisdom (lookup "Vāsanā" for starts) and modern Cognitive Behavior Therapy. Some people like to focus on one, but I have learned from them all.
- martinmakesgame 5y ago
  I am currently in the process of making a game that focuses on these ideas. It's a 2D fishing, farming, mining and philosophy game. I would like to give people the opportunity to practice a calm and peaceful state of mind by knowing that as people we can choose our thoughts and how we feel. Just as people can get stronger physically with physical exercise, I believe that people can become better at responding, by choosing how they think and feel, rather than reacting to what happens. There may be no tears or laughter in the land of Vulcan but we can certainly feel more joy by choosing how we think and feel.