The serpent that stings us means to hurt us and rejoices as it does so; the lowest animal can imagine the pain of others. But to imagine the joy of others and to rejoice at it is the highest privilege of the highest animals.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Schadenfreude, the experience of pleasure in the pain of other people, is distinctly related to envy, as several studies have demonstrated. When we envy someone, we are prone to feel excitement, even joy, if they experience a setback or suffer in some way. But it would be wise to practice instead the opposite, what the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche called Mitfreude —“joying with.” This means that instead of merely congratulating people on their good fortune, something easy to do and easily forgotten, you must instead actively try to feel their joy, as a form of empathy. This can be somewhat unnatural, as our first tendency is to feel a pang of envy, but we can train ourselves to imagine how it must feel to others to experience their happiness or satisfaction. This not only cleans our brain of ugly envy but also creates an unusual form of rapport. If we are the targets of Mitfreude, we feel the other person’s genuine excitement at our good fortune, instead of just hearing words, and it induces us to feel the same for them. Because it is such a rare occurrence, it contains great power to bond people.
Daily Law: Internalize other people’s joy. In doing so, we increase our own capacity to feel this emotion in relation to our own experiences.
The Laws of Human Nature, 10: Beware the Fragile Ego—The Law of Envy
The lower self tends to be stronger. Its impulses pull us down into emotional reactions and defensive postures, making us feel self-righteous and superior to others. It makes us grab for immediate pleasures and distractions, always taking the path of least resistance. It induces us to adopt what other people are thinking, losing ourselves in the group. We feel the impulses of the higher self when we are drawn out of ourselves, wanting to connect more deeply with others, to absorb our minds in our work, to think instead of react, to follow our own path in life, and to discover what makes us unique. The lower is the more animal and reactive side of our nature, and one that we easily slip into. The higher is the more truly human side of our nature, the side that makes us thoughtful and self-aware. Because the higher impulse is weaker, connecting to it requires effort and insight. Bringing out this ideal self within us is what we all really want, because it is only in developing this side of ourselves that we humans feel truly fulfilled. The month of November will help you accomplish this by making you aware of the potentially positive and active elements contained within your nature.
There’s a common misconception that people have about human rationality.
This misconception is that rationality involves the suppression or the repression of emotions. In other words, if you’re feeling fear or anger or love or hatred, you have to tamp down those emotions. You have to get rid of them in order to be rational.
In this view, rationality isn’t something very fun or very exciting. It’s kind of like health food. It’s good for you, but it doesn’t taste very good. I want to tell you that this is actually quite wrong. It’s actually the opposite. Rationality involves some very important emotions that if you’re not experiencing you can’t begin to think rationally Neuroscience has demonstrated this with studies of people who’ve had damage to the emotional centers in their brain. After, they are not capable of making rational decisions or rational thinking.
I can illustrate my idea of rationality with some examples you may have experienced.
Let’s say you have a plan—something you want to accomplish in life.
There’s a book you want to write, or you want to lose weight or start a business. You’ve been feeling very frustrated and impatient with the course of your life. So you decide, I’m going to stop this, I’m going to actually get this project done, I’m going to create this business, or whatever it is. And you think about it and take gradual steps to get there.
Or let’s say you’re dealing with a nasty divorce situation, and you’re fighting over custody of your child, whom you love very much. It’s getting so ugly that you realize if it keeps going this way the child will actually be damaged by this process. And so at some point you take a step back and you think, “What’s really important is the long-term health of my child, so I’m not going to get involved in this process. I’m actually going to back off, and I’m going to think of what’s best for the child.”
Or let us say finally, there’s a very toxic person involved in your life.
Some kind of raging narcissist, for instance, who’s getting you enmeshed in all of this drama that’s making you miserable. And at some point, you tell yourself, “Damn it, I’ve had enough of this person. I’m going to figure out a way to get rid of this narcissist.” It’s not easy because this person is entangled in your life in all these ways. So you step back, and you get control of yourself, and you think, “How can I get rid of this person?” And then you do it. Finally, the narcissist is gone, and you feel a tremendous sense of relief.
Let’s look at these three examples.
In the first one—you’re fed up with the fact that you’re overweight or that you haven’t been able to accomplish any of your dreams or desires in life.
That frustration—that emotion—impels you to take action, which is to go through the steps of thinking rationally of how to get out of this state of frustration. And then, when it’s over, when you finally have realized the project or goal, you feel a tremendous sense of relief and pride.
In the case of the child—you’re impelled by the sense of empathy and love for the child. You’re worried about them and that love makes you step back and go through this rational process. And when it’s over, you feel so much better about yourself.
Or with that toxic person in your life—you’re full of anger, but you step back, you take rational steps, and you get rid of them. You feel joy and relief.
So if you didn’t feel these emotions at first, you would never be able to take the actions that will lead you to some kind of rational decision. And if you did not feel the rewards of pride, of empathy, and love of accomplishing something, you would never be motivated to go through the rational process again and again and again. So rationality involves emotions and thinking.
Rationality is not about tamping down your emotions. It’s about creating a beautiful harmony between the thinking process and the emotional animal parts of our nature. It is important to not see the path to rationality as something painful and ascetic. In fact, it brings powers that are immensely satisfying and pleasurable, much deeper than the more manic pleasures the world tends to offer us.