[marcus_holmes]

There are lots of people who are unable to clearly feel emotion (Alexythemia). Are these people doomed to wander without purpose or meaning? Obviously not.

Emotions are fleeting, ephemeral, things that should definitely not be used to drive our lives. You can have 10 different, conflicting, feelings in 5 minutes (and for some of us this is a common occurrence).

Meditation allowed me to get past my random thoughts and emotions and achieve some semblance of coherence to my inner life. Detaching from my emotions has done more for me achieving any meaning in my life than following them.

Defining my values and using them to guide my life has created meaning for me. YMMV

[hayst4ck]

> Obviously not.

This is not obvious to me at all. I would expect trouble clearly feeling emotion to directly lead to struggle with meaning.

I am pretty sure this psychologist would agree: https://drjonicewebb.com/do-you-have-alexithymia/

Her book running on empty quite literally states that alexythemia is damaging to a feeling of purpose. She states alexythemia directly contributes to (1) emptiness and numbness, (2) suffering in silence, (3) questioning the meaning and value of your own life, and (4) escape fantasies.

[Mezzie]

I had medication induced alexithymia and since I've experienced both sides of it, I would add my voice to saying that having alexithymia causes major problems in finding purpose in life. Making any kind of decision was terrible; I couldn't decide what jobs to pursue, couldn't pick what hobbies to do, etc. I felt like crap physically because I couldn't feel any desire for food or other sustenance.

I also ended up with a drug problem because I tried drugs at this time and it was the only way I could feel anything and make choices.

[marcus_holmes]

Interesting.

I went through clinical depression and solved that partly through Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) [0], which has "The Happiness Trap" as its core text. The core idea of this (as you'd expect from the title) is that pursuing happiness as a goal is pointless and futile. ACT emphasises values over feelings as the core of meaning, and distancing oneself from one's feelings as a way to deal with them. There's considerable overlap with stoicism, which also de-emphasises feelings as a source of meaning (or anything). Both of these treat emotions as things to be treated carefully, as a probable source of misery and dis-ease, and not something to be embraced as one's core path to meaning.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_and_commitment_ther...

[Mezzie]

I've been depressed (but also not - I'm 'lucky' in that my depression is/has been situation based rather than innate/chemical). I think the problem with chasing happiness in particular is that it's kind of similar to chasing the high of a drug: It's not possible to be actively happy 100% of the time. I know in my depressive times one thing I liked to do was set myself impossible goals, and I think 'being happy' is one of them.

In my case, I needed to be more in touch with my emotions because I have severe dissociative issues and a very adversarial relationship with my own body, but I don't seek out any particular emotion. I see my emotions as data being passed to me from my lizard brain and I believe that to make appropriate decisions I must pay attention to all relevant data. In the same way that when planning an outing I must consider my physical capacity, when planning a goal or project I must also consider my emotional data. I try not to ascribe meaning to the emotions themselves, but I view them as invaluable indicators of meaning. If that makes any sense.

[hayst4ck]

I don't think these two things are necessarily incompatible.

"Emotions is meaning" is not "happiness is meaning", but that "feeling is meaning". I imagine that the acceptance in ACT involves allowing oneself to feel the feelings and understand them. I think Dr Jonice places most of her focus on this.

She makes it clear that feelings do not directly imply action, but that feelings imply relationship to a need, so understanding an emotion through the context of your needs helps inform the right action for the emotion.

She says neglect means your parents never helped you understand the relationship between emotions, meaning, and actions or never treated your emotions as valid and meaningful in the first place, resulting in suppression (she doesn't use the term experiential avoidance, but it sounds like the same idea).

> The core conception of ACT is that psychological suffering is usually caused by experiential avoidance, cognitive entanglement, and resulting psychological rigidity that leads to a failure to take needed behavioral steps in accord with core values.

It says it right here and this is consistent with her works. I think she would define "not emotions" or "not feeling" as experiential avoidance.

I imagine the approaches and techniques both schools would exercise are probably similar.

Honestly, reading what you wrote, without any real context of who you are or how you think, it sounds like you might still be experientially avoidant. I don't understand the difference between stoicism and experiential avoidance. "distancing" seems much different than "accepting," "embracing," or "treating as valid." But maybe words like distance mean different things to each of us.

I also am a total layman here, so I am probably ignorant.

I am not sure how a person would have values without emotions. I would expect values to be a product of emotions.

[Mezzie]

> I don't understand the difference between stoicism and experiential avoidance.

I agree with you that I see a lot of people using stoicism as experiential avoidance, but there is a difference between experiential avoidance and healthy stoicism.

Healthy stoicism recognizes that many (perhaps even most) unpleasant experiences are quite survivable and that feeling poorly is no inherent reason to panic.

To use an example with physical 'emotions': Stoicism recognizes that standing outside without a jacket in the mid 50s (F) might be uncomfortable but that's it. You're not going to die. You're not going to have any lasting damage. You just have to deal with being uncomfortable. Another example is that I have MS and find standing in one place to be quite uncomfortable but it doesn't cause any permanent harm - therefore instead of freaking out when I'm uncomfortable the answer is to ask myself 'do I want/need whatever thing I'm in line for?' and if the answer is 'yes' then I'm going to experience some discomfort and that's okay because humans have evolved over millions of years to experience some discomfort and as long as the discomfort stays at the 'not dangerous' level it's fine. Keep an eye on it but proceed.

It's also in being able to practice this skill so you can tell the difference between discomfort (warning) and acute danger signals. The more familiar you are with your body's reactions to chill, the easier it is for you to sense when that danger line is crossed and frostbite might set in or your body temperature is dropping perilously. The more I practice being uncomfortable, the more I can tell the difference between 'this thing is harder for me than an able-bodied person but I can do it if necessary' and 'this is not right/something is wrong and I need to disengage'.

> I am not sure how a person would have values without emotions.

Social values can be managed in my experience, but personal ones are hard. I had a very firm idea of what the social contract should look like (so like me with no emotions still followed the rules of the road and returned my carts to the corral) but next to zero personal direction. So I had the value that education is important and a society with an educated populace functions better, but no ability to decide what I should learn next. Emotions help you add nuance to your values so they're something other than principles that you get angry when other people transgress.