[HN Gopher] The Soldiers' Philosopher
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The Soldiers' Philosopher
Author : aways
Score : 28 points
Date : 2024-10-01 23:59 UTC (23 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.philosophyforlife.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.philosophyforlife.org)
| quercusa wrote:
| (2014)
|
| Interesting:
|
| _The Stoics were giving salvation for tough times. It's a great
| philosophy for tough times, I'm not sure it's a great philosophy
| for everyday living. It's always good to feel more in control,
| but it's not good to think that luck and the vicissitudes of the
| world can't touch you or that you can't show moral outrage, love,
| grief, and so on._
| mturmon wrote:
| Full agree.
|
| The preceding paragraphs are terse and add further insight
| about the limits of Stoicism (or perhaps the little-s version
| that one might commonly adopt if under stress) and its effects
| on curtailing emotions.
| pjlegato wrote:
| Common misconception; Stoicism is not about curtailing or
| repressing emotions.
|
| Stoicism is about not allowing your emotions to govern you.
|
| Subtle but profound difference.
| jajko wrote:
| Hmm, I may be a stoic by accident then (or more like coming
| there on my own). Emotions are great, I've fallen madly in
| love few times, I've cried from happiness when summiting
| Matterhorn, proposing to my girlfriend on top of Mont Blanc
| or checking some other higher peaks, I've had tears of joy
| when cutting umbilical cords of my kids and so on.
|
| But I never let them run my life, and I remove them from
| any bigger decisions. Cold hard facts don't change, and so
| doesn't your perspective and decisions based on them. Any
| new fact just adds to the mix with at most mild alteration
| of the result.
|
| Yet many folks I know have fucked up something bad in their
| life, by giving up to emotions in crucial moments. Lifelong
| regrets often afterwards, either hiding the fact in shame
| or living with consequences, in both cases visibly
| permanently less happy (not just cheating to be clear
| although that's of course one of main ones).
| keybored wrote:
| If someone said this about Stoicism on HN (not a professional
| philosopher) they would get corrected by the Stoic
| practitioners/dabblers: that it's about skillfully managing
| circumstances and your reaction to them. Not about cutting off
| your emotional life.
|
| Anyway I don't see the connection between the vicissitudes of
| life and travelling half-way across the world and then getting
| blown up by an IDE^W IED. What part of that fits into the
| Reinhold Nieburh quote?
|
| > 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.
| getpokedagain wrote:
| Damn IntelliJ blowing people up
| keybored wrote:
| Ahh haha. Fixed now. ;)
| KineticLensman wrote:
| I used to work with Soldiers a lot (I helped build training
| simulations) and was often amazed by their perspectives. I
| remember theoretical discussions (Q: when is the enemy defeated?
| A: when he thinks he is) alongside powerful raw emotions (Dutch
| peacekeepers unable to intervene in the Srebrenica massacre). On
| one project, where things were technically crashing around our
| ears, I was staggered by the emotional and practical support from
| soldiers who understood that I was on their side, more than I've
| ever experienced from civvie project managers. It's the closest
| I've come to crying with gratitude. That and the attitude: when
| you fall down, we will laugh, but we will help you up.
|
| Respect.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Excellent read. Original perspectives too - just drop the D from
| PTSD and get with the idea that this is normal and the hardest
| people are soft on the inside.
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