Comment by forgottenpass
5 years ago
The value in stoicism is that it lets people transcend limitations they have control over. It's a tool and comes in many packages (e.g.: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.").
Lots of "people on HN push stoicism" because a great many people in all walks of life share life lessons that can be categorized as stoic.
>Not all of us are 100% unaffected by dealing with jerks, and we like to get ourselves out of toxic environments that make us unhappy. Is that so bad?
This is reductive. If you were to undertake a real appraisal of the ideas with a goal to separate the wheat from the chaff, as well as feel out the boundaries of what is often presented as blanket advice (rather than try to get one over on "people on HN"), the advice people are trying to offer would make more sense.
Stoicism is fine, I don't have a problem with it, but I have a problem with people chiming in with attitude advice in face of a non-attitude problem.
Saying someone should be more stoic, especially with a "like me", in the face of a problem, is like telling somebody "deal with it" or "lighten up". At best it's not constructive, at worst it's bragging and putting someone down.
And it deflects the actual problem. The problem here was "too many people were jerks" not "you are too sensitive".
> The problem here was "too many people were jerks" not "you are too sensitive".
So what a solution would you suggest for such a problem? I believe it is more correct to say both are the problems. I have no idea what is possible to do with the jerks themselves but I know it is possible to become immune.
When there is a disease outbreak obviously the problem is the virus but we can't just make it disappear magically so we choose to address it's couple problem - our immunity weakness, we take a vaccine, teach our immune systems to detect the virus, become immune and keep on going.
I have never meant judging the Actix author for "being a pussy", I have proposed the only solution I could come up with.
In fact I have already met some people with alike problems personally, explained them the idea and in some days they thanked me for showing them another perspective which couldn't come to their minds. They didn't know they could just observe the others' behavior (as well as their own feelings) and consciously choose what to feel. Perhaps this might seem like bragging again but I prefer to take a risk of being judged this way for the chance of actually helping at least a portion of people who reads this.
When you have come through some problems successfully and developed a skill necessary, telling about that inevitably sounds like bragging, but IMHO keeping it for yourself (when it could help others) just because of being afraid of being shamed would be selfish.
Your mind is entirely yours, it's the only really private place and you don't have let anybody in to spread chaos there. Trolls want just that and you don't have to obey. It's a magical space free from the limitations of the material world, entirely under your own power, your intention alone is enough to do whatever you want there. If somebody attacks you physically you can't just ignore that, they will damage you anyway. If somebody attacks you verbally you can react by feeling something or nothing at all, all you need is to know you can (and be mindful of what's going on at the moment in the first place), much like Neo in the Matrix.