"The one who controls emotions becomes a robot." So many people say so, yesterday I came across such a comment somewhere again. The most interesting thing is that despite the obvious logical nonsense of this statement (perfectly analyzed, it seems, by N.I. Kozlov about 15 years ago), many people who try to “control their emotions” really become very similar to robots. What is wrong with their picture of the world that they get such a result? I'll try to figure it out. What is meant by control? After surfing through thematic discussions, I realized that control usually means suppression. And the point is not only that this is almost always self-deception, the cessation of only external signs of emotion. Simply, in the average person’s picture of the world, if we are talking only about cessation, then in the place of the terminated emotion there should be a void. A certain state of “without emotions.” And what usually remains with a person when he supposedly has no emotions? What remains is the ordinary reasoning mind, filled with dogmas, concepts, “should”, “good”, “correct”... And this is a robot. So, they are right when they say that control of emotions leads to robot-likeness? Yes, while in my picture of the world there is nothing but the conceptual mind and mechanical emotions - that’s how it is. Moreover, as long as this is so, I remain a robot, regardless of whether I follow my emotions or suppress them. Both emotional and conceptual reactions are equally mechanistic. What is control really? According to one of the definitions, control over any process is the ability, at will, to: 1) initiate the process 2) maintain the process 3) stop the process Let's apply this definition to the control of emotions: control is not just the ability to stop an emotion, but the ability to experience something at any time what I choose to experience. This means that by controlling emotions, I do not become a “person without emotions,” I simply choose which emotion I should experience right now. But what should I rely on to make a choice? After all, if I choose based on the decisions of the conceptual mind (including concepts about development, practice, etc.), I again remain a robot. And in order not to be a robot, it is necessary to rely on perceptions that are not mechanical, perceptions that are both alive and intelligent. The standard psychological model, in which there are only emotions and reason, does not answer this question, and leaves no other choice but be either a slave of emotions or a slave of concepts. Meanwhile, there is a solution, and it’s quite simple. The criterion may be the very feeling of “aliveness”, the richness of life. This feeling is neither an emotion, nor a thought, nor a sensation. This is some fundamental characteristic of life in general. And although it is not clear where to place it in the modern scientific picture of the psyche, every person feels it one way or another, and can easily identify moments when he feels especially alive. Choosing every time what increases the richness of life - this means living, leaving everything further from the robot in oneself. Interest, a sense of mystery, tenderness, falling in love, pleasure, clarity... All this usually increases the richness of life. Anger, envy, anxiety, pity, stupidity, etc. - reduce. But even from this we cannot make rules, otherwise we will slide into the same mechanicalness! Only the feeling of life itself can be a living criterion.