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elf-control is an interesting thing. We know that this quality exists, that some people are better able to consistently direct themselves toward a goal without being distracted or dissuaded. But what exactly is being controlled, and who is doing the controlling, and why?
It can be hard to divorce our concept of self from our emotions. I'm feeling something, we think. It would be inauthentic for me to deny it, or even to resist the feeling too forcefully.
I think, rather, that the emotions should be thought of more as advisors, or a council of sorts. Each of them has particular situations in which their advice is sound, and their energies will help; they also each have many more situations in which their aid is unnecessary, or even actively harmful, and their counsel can, or even must, be put to the side. Self-control, I believe, hinges on being able to endure the passions, or emotions, and heed them only when they are in their element.
I don't struggle a great deal with anger, per se, but its counsin annoyance is often at my side. "Acedia", better but misleadingly known in English as "sloth", is perhaps one of my principles vices -- the desire to be doing something other than what is right in front of me. I feel it even now, writing this blog, as my acedic counselor tries to advise me to go and read something, or paint something, or brush my teeth.
Who is it that resists? How do I call up the appropriate reasons to stay here, writing this blog? I am all of me, the whole of my body and all of my passions as well -- but there's a particular part, a small, quiet, but immensely powerful part of me, who does not shout, does not weep, does not roll about in frustration; but rather listens -- and then acts.