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Comment by _dekeract_ | Hacker News Reader

The point of stoicism is not curbing of positive emotions, rather accepting negative emotions as fundamental, unavoidable part of life. From personal experience, stoicism is what worked for me. It helped me deal with anxiety.

Reminding yourself that something negative can happen might strengthen your control over your emotions.

Stoicism has never stopped me at enjoying my life, in fact it made me enjoy my life more.

I have a situation with my girlfriend, she is always worried that she might lose me. I tell her I'm not afraid of losing her and she might think it is because she loves me more. But to me losing her was always a possibility due to my stoic mindset. It is not because I don't love her or appreciate time with her. I'm just at peace with possibility of something bad happening to me.

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> “I’m just at peace with the possibility of something bad happening to me.”

I think this is the key thing to understand, as well as not worrying about things which are outside of your own control. If your own personal actions did not or will not be a factor in the outcome of something, whatever that something is, then it is pointless to worry or fret about it. Be concerned and happy about what is in your control!

The ancient stoics like Aurelius definitely seemed to be talking about curbing both the positive AND the negative emotions. I was surprised by this when I listened to the words of Aurelius.

Newer stoic philosophy may be different.

> Aurelius definitely seemed to be talking about curbing both the positive AND the negative emotions

I think you're right about this. But there's nothing to say you couldn't take the useful aspects of a particular philosophy and discard the rest. For example, Cato the Younger adopted the fortitude of stoic principles to filibuster the senate, though I believe he didn't behave in the manner of the stoics during his lifetime.

But, as you say, Aurelius was particularly proud of his ability to forgo pleasure, especially when it was readily available to him. I don't think this is at-all necessary to forgo pleasure in order to reduce one's own suffering. That a buddhist monk can sit still while being set alight seems to be strong evidence that pain can be assuaged by mind training alone.

Edit: I looked up self-immolation, and it turns out 'self-mummification' is a thing too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokushinbutsu

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