The Stoic philosophers talked about three classes of emotion:
- Proto-emotions
- Unhealthy emotions
- Healthy emotions
Proto-emotions are instantaneous, visceral responses to situations, such as threats. Sure, sometimes these are triggered in ordinary settings because of cognitive and perceptual distortions. But these visceral responses pass swiftly through. Fifteen seconds, I'm told. They're not good or bad, and have perfectly reasonable biological functions (e.g. increasing the ability to fight or flee).
What happens next is what is key:
If I judge the situation, I create networks of fear, anger, guilt, shame, desire, and aversion and get lost in a secondary realm of unhealthy emotions, which can last for decades. Have you ever been upset about something that is not literally happening right now or not happening to you?
None of these six are helpful and none of these are necessary. Once the proto-emotion has done its job of alerting me to a state of affairs, I need to swiftly regain my poise, or their conversion into an unhealthy emotion turns me from the driver into the driven.
If I remain neutral and simply ask myself what the virtuous response is, I can remain above the battlefield. This leaves me open to the full range of healthy and helpful human emotions: love, joy, peace, happiness, compassion, creative excitement, etc.
The motto: remain neutral; remain rational; do not build hell in response to stimuli.