[Tade0]

I can't help but feel sceptical about this - correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall psychiatrists/psychologists explaining emotions as a "call" to do something.

> Boredom—a call to do something I am avoiding.

This is actually an evolutionary mechanism preventing us from expending energy on things with a low probability of success. Only problem is, our brains haven't changed much over the last 200k years and they can't assess relatively recent stuff like doing taxes or filing for divorce, so these things go to the default category of "not worth doing".

One way to go around this is to imagine how you will feel when it's done - not guaranteed to help, but at least it's actionable.

[jstarfish]

Psychiatrists/psychologists have a lengthy history of being wildly incorrect or openly fraudulent about a lot of things, and in not-so-distant history. Don't expect them to have this all figured out.

Boredom is a good example of a bad call. That sounds like how he internalizes it, but it's definitely not true for everyone. It signals lack of anything challenging. A starving man is seldom bored. Same with:

> Hatred—a call to accept something about myself I don’t like.

This one's just dumb. This is the logic behind "I hate gays, ergo I must be one." Glad we figured that out. Now explain "I hate blacks, Asians and Italians."

Hatred--real, actual hatred, not the pithy SJW definition--is borne from fear, ignorance, or grief. It is not a signal of introspection.

[roguecoder]

This book isn't saying it is a "signal of" introspection: it is saying it is a "call to" introspection. That is, if you choose to look into the feeling you can learn something about yourself you are not consciously aware of.

I wonder if you've ever actually felt hatred. Not of some general concept (that is more likely disgust than hatred anyway, and as far as I've seen is usually rooted in insecurity about whether the person earned their relative status and fear that on a level playing field they will lose), but of an actual specific other person.

I have.

It was sparked in how someone was behaving towards me and the consequences his actions had, but my reaction was not some rational response: it was an intense vicious loathing that could have rationalized any response I chose to indulge.

And when I looked into it, really sat and was honest with myself, it was because he was doing things I wouldn't let myself do.

Now, I wouldn't let myself do them for very good reasons, because they were bad things with bad consequences that hurt people, but there was a part of me that wanted to do them anyway. The intensity of my emotional response, which actually got in the way of me effectively responding to his shitty actions, came because I saw the part of myself I liked least, that I had tried to stamp out and destroy, in him. The feeling was evidence that I had failed to eradicate the impulse from myself, and I externalized all of that onto the person who reminded me that that part of me existed.

Once I acknowledged that, that some part of me was envious that he got to do these terrible things and get away with it and I wouldn't even let myself try, I could decide how I actually wanted to respond without being ruled by those feelings I had.

[jstarfish]

That's very thoughtful!

> I wonder if you've ever actually felt hatred. Not of some general concept (that is more likely disgust than hatred anyway, and as far as I've seen is usually rooted in insecurity about whether the person earned their relative status and fear that on a level playing field they will lose), but of an actual specific other person.

> It was sparked in how someone was behaving towards me and the consequences his actions had, but my reaction was not some rational response: it was an intense vicious loathing that could have rationalized any response I chose to indulge.

> And when I looked into it, really sat and was honest with myself, it was because he was doing things I wouldn't let myself do. [...] Now, I wouldn't let myself do them for very good reasons, because they were bad things with bad consequences that hurt people, but there was a part of me that wanted to do them anyway.

This hits weirdly close to home, but you lose me at the end (I have to watch what I say since the individual has taken up cyberstalking). It's possible "disgust" is applicable, but I deal with disgusting people all day-- this one in particular evokes something more unpleasant. I have no interest in playing their games, and yet they're still at it years later. I'm not sure how to internalize that the way you have.

[em-bee]

Hatred--real, actual hatred, not the pithy SJW definition--is borne from fear, ignorance, or grief. It is not a signal of introspection.

but isn't introspection how you overcome fear, ignorance, or grief?

[7373737373]

I'd extend the definition to

> Hatred - a call to accept or change something about myself or (my relation to) the world I don't like

[Tade0]

My gripe is that the author in question holds a master's in education - not psychology, not an MD, and produces theories that are not aligned with established practice - meaning this book is likely harmful bull.

[solarmist]

> Hatred

Or threat. Not as common in industrialized life though.