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"t was exactly the same with the all-consuming anger and contempt I fed on when most immersed in political chatter. Those feelings reinforced an illusion of myself as more perceptive, intelligent and morally just in my perspectives than most other people. I was someone with the right values."

Ouch! That was definitely me. I have now calmed down. However, I find feelings helpful as a starting point ("water supply") for, say, writing an angry letter. Write it angrily, sleep on it, remove every adjective, and arrive at an assertive not aggressive letter.

Also it depends on the person you're interacting with, not just a change of personal mood. If I like someone enough, if our balance is good, I can accommodate far more disagreement than with someone where we're always rubbing each other up the wrong way. And it depends too on the topic. Some things I just feel too intensely about - and I'm not sure if I want to feel less intensely about them; I'll get around to seeing!

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That's a good point you make, about writing and sleeping on it. I smiled at that, because I woke this morning with the intention of re-writing the next post (which I drafted yesterday, in a certain mood) by toning down or removing the adjectives.

The way I see it is that my original draft is 'emotionally contaminated'. Cleansing it, somewhat, is sensible because if I find emotive copy to be tiring to read, I shouldn't offer it to others.

I ought to add that I know I'll never be out of the woods on this. The best I can claim is - like you - to have calmed down a bit.

There are still some issues that I'm incapable of calming down on, which I'm exploring a bit at the moment, in the hope of writing something about it. Thanks for inspiring more effort on that !

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I don't think one should not be "emotionally contaminated" at all. For example, if one didn't feel strongly about injustice, nothing would be done. Also one has to accept that there are some issues with some people which one can't overcome. Although being less solely ego-driven is a good thing. But it's like Alice's caterpillar's advice about the mushroom - eat a bit from either side of it to achieve balance, a reasonable compromise.

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I especially appreciate reading your articles where you take this (Buddhist? Zen? Mindful? I probably don't have the right adjective) tack in your writing, likely because it's rather refreshingly different from my own more ego-driven style and thoughts.

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Thanks Andrew, I'm a bit obsessed by ego since developing a meditation practice and reading the Book of Chuang Tzu. I'm not even sure how to define 'ego' really, other than as a status-seeking apparatus of some kind. The thing I began to notice was how it always seemed to be connected with lots of negative vibes, like taking offence, feeling frustrated with others or just being generally ill at ease. I'm really happy that you've identified that strand as I stumble around these issues and ideas.

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I usually think about ego as the thing inside me that judges me, and the thing that cares about how others judge me.

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