yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

I’m Averse To People! (A Stoic perspective)


3m read
·Nov 4, 2024

Processing might take a few minutes. Refresh later.

The dynamics of desire and aversion lie at the basis of Stoic thought in regards to how we relate to the world. Aversion means a strong dislike and disinclination towards something or someone. Even though this might seem harmless, it can cause a lot of trouble. In this video, I want to share Stoic views on aversion and how to deal with it. I recently got a question from Frank Bask, asking me: “Can you make a video about aversion? More specifically, aversion to a certain person or group of people. I’ve been struggling with that for the past couple of weeks.” End quote.

Well, to understand aversion, we have to understand its polar opposite as well, which is desire. Because desire is a form of aversion and aversion is a form of desire. I think I’m throwing a bit of Taoism in there by saying that one opposite cannot exist without the other and that both turn around a spindle. Let’s say that we desire a million dollars. And I mean that we really crave for it. The desire automatically contains the aversion to not having a million dollars, which we could translate into the aversion to being poor.

By taking this position, we make our future happiness conditional. If we’re able to obtain a million dollars, we’re happy. But if we fail, we’re miserable. This is a quote by Epictetus about this mechanism: “Remember that following desire promises the attainment of that of which you are desirous; and aversion promises the avoiding that to which you are averse. However, he who fails to obtain the object of his desire is disappointed, and he who incurs the object of his aversion wretched.” End quote.

Does this mean that we should abolish desire and aversion? No, that’s too simplistic. The Stoics of old recognized that human nature has a tendency to desire things that are good for us. They called this phenomenon oikeiosis. Things that are good for us but not necessarily required for reaching a state of eudaimonia are known as preferred indifferents. Examples of these are wealth, health, and a good reputation. The opposite are dispreferred indifferents. Examples of these are death, poverty, and sickness.

So, how does this boil down to the aversion towards a person or a group of people? Being averse to a serial killer is healthy because incurring a serial killer probably isn’t good for your health. And it would also be wise to be averse to a thief, savage, and any other person that will do us harm. Since human nature wants us to live, it makes sense that we naturally avoid the people that pose a threat.

So, we might want to ask ourselves the following questions: Are our estimations about the people we’re averse to truly correct? Do the people we’re averse to truly pose a threat? Many fears are irrational. As Seneca wrote to his friend Lucilius: “There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” End quote.

According to the Stoics, our capacity for rational thinking is what sets us apart from animals. This means that fears, even though they might be ingrained in the primitive part of our nature, can be overridden by rational thoughts. Cognitive behavioral therapy is a way to replace irrational thoughts with rational thinking, and this form of therapy happens to have roots in Stoicism.

Let’s say you’re averse to a group of people because of prejudices based on news coverage in regards to that group. We have a tendency to think that all members of that group are like that, which probably isn't true. Moreover, we only know this information for sure if we know every single person of that group. Similarly, this applies to a single person we might be averse to. We might have heard some rumors and formed an image in our heads about this person that does not correspond with reality.

“Accordingly, some things torment us more than they ought; some torment us before they ought; and some torment us when they ought not to torment us at all. We are in the habit of exaggerating, or imagining, or anticipating, sorrow.” End quote. The trick is to c...

More Articles

View All
The Man Who Killed Millions and Saved Billions (Clean Version)
The 1918 Nobel Prize for Chemistry is probably the most important Nobel Prize ever awarded. It was given to German scientist Fritz Haber for solving one of the biggest problems humanity has ever faced. His invention is directly responsible for the lives o…
Origins of agriculture | World History | Khan Academy
This timeline here covers 200,000 years, from 200,000 years into the past to the present. Just to get a sense of the scale of this, if we were to go 2,000 years ago to the time of the Roman Empire, that would be roughly here on the timeline. If I were to …
15 Signs You’re Burned Out, Not Lazy
Over 70% of professionals feel burnt out at some point, yet many dismiss it as mere laziness. But the great news about burnout is that it’s solvable. The bad news about laziness is that, in this video, we’re about to call you out. Here are 15 signs you’re…
5 Good Philosophies To Live By
Pay attention to what we’re about to tell you now because this is really important. There are many ways in which you can experience life, but not all of them will bring the same amount of joy, peace, and fulfillment when the game is finally over. In fact,…
New Crew, Same Pissah | Wicked Tuna
Chum and they will come with Lance. Brad and I, we are gonna catch a ton of tuna fish this year. Drop you like a bad habit. I’ve known Paul for about two and a half years. He’s a great guy; he’s a great fisherman. The reason why I’m fishing is to provide …
DISTORTIONS
Hey, Vsauce. Michael here. I am distorted. The pixels you are watching have been time displaced. They’ve been mapped onto a gradient, and the darker the region they’re mapped to, the further behind they lag. The effect is really fun, but it’s certainly no…