Davide Aversa
Apr 4, 2022

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Anger is probably the most challenging and polarizing thing to teach about Stoicism. Ironically, people get pretty angry when discussing anger.

I think that is because we conflate too many emotions into the word "rage" and "anger" and, therefore, we find it hard to separate the emotion (anger) from what it is causing it (e.g., witnessing a barbaric act of injustice). However, we can (and should) address the agency of the latter without the fumes of the former.

It is like if we smell smoke and we start feeling fear. The smell is producing the fear, but I can ignore the fear while still using the smell to guide me toward the burning object so that I can, maybe, put it out. I think that's more useful to society than star panicking every time we smell smoke.

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Davide Aversa

Ph.D in Artificial Intelligence. Game Developer. AI Lover. Hardcore Gamer.