Massimo Pigliucci

that he was feeling the panic, right?

He just managed to handle it so that it wouldn't show up externally because that would make things worse and it would affect his children.

So that's an important thing

To keep in mind, Stoics are not people who don't feel or somehow manage to completely repress the emotions.

All of the ancient Stoics are very clear about this.

Epictetus says to his students, I don't want you to become unfeeling statues.

You're human beings, not pieces of marble.

And Seneca says even sages, even the ideal stoic, of course, has feelings because they're human.

But the important thing is that you have the presence of mind to know how to direct those feelings and how to handle those feelings, depending on the situation, right?

There may very well be a situation when you're on your own.

There's no problem if you go to the bathroom and you start screaming.

That's fine.

It's not unstoic.

If it makes you feel better, go for it.

However, if the screaming is in the middle of the situation that we just heard and your kids are going to freak out, then that's not a good thing to do.

And good presence of mind, good self-control in that sense.

Again, this is not a matter of repressing.

It's a matter of handling and modulating your emotions.

So I think you're right that...

Asking ourselves how our behavior is affecting other people is not only helpful in a practical sense, because if we're talking about your kids or your partner or your brother, that's a significant incentive to...