(At 24:00) I understand "regret" as a perceived error of volition, a (mistaken) conclusion that one had the ability to act differently with a joint (mistaken) belief that one then could have avoided a perceived negative consequence. The underlying desire I see is one that restores control and understanding of the past, to absolve ourselves of everything from guilt to anger by imbuing our past selves with ignorance or innocence. Remorse (remordimiento), repentance (arrepentimiento), compunction, penitence, self-reproach, etc. etc. is the recognition one was/acted badly or immorally. It's entirely coherent to be repentant (I see I acted immorally) and not regret (… but, I had no choice in the matter) or regretful (This could have been avoided had I chosen differently…) but not repentant (…but I was/am justified despite this). That whole mess is to say the benefits people apply to regret are really benefits of self-awareness through retrospection. We regret to try and salvage the signal from our noisy past that says we're still virtuous and have will. Not to be super señora católica in the comments, but we are all called to repent and were absolved for/of (original) sin; we don't regret it.
I'm a life coach with an inclination to Buddhist philosophy and Dr. Peña-Guzmán's outlook is exactly what I advocate for clients who are in distress about their life choices and decisions. Wanted to share my base belief first because I want to talk about the locking your keys into the car story. Simple mistakes in a high-stakes situation is something that happens quite a lot to lots of other people. For that kind of situation when you've invested into an event (like your conference and flight tickets) it's tempting for the mind to think that not locking your keys would have been the obviously "better" choice. The circumstances that make not locking the keys "better" is that you HAVE to make it into your commitments; and that's exactly the trap that the mind falls into to narrow your vision. I'm big compared to an infant and small compared to Shaq, but what am I? I just am without anything to compare with. Locking your keys in the car is just locking your keys in the car. When you're at the risk of not making your commitments, locking your keys in the car is a bad thing. But why is that bad? Because the underlying assumption that makes the situation bad is that you HAVE to make it to your commitments, otherwise ______ (some options are I'm an unreliable person, I'm unprofessional, I waste my money, etc). But as an individual with free will in this universe nothing prescribes you to those commitments, and your life won't suddenly flash a GAME OVER sign because you miss the conference. There will be consequences to missing the commitments but in the grand scheme of things who knows how much impact that could have / would have had? To a high schooler SAT scores may seem like a life-or-death stakes event (which is unfortunately what happens so often where I'm from, South Korea) but when you're in your 60's it's such a small part of the whole trajectory of your life, and that trajectory of your life can continue with or without specific ways of manifesting itself. I know that this may sound very "just remove all feelings from your life" but the core essence of my message is that this perspective can really give your stressed soul a big relief, because in modern society everyone is subject to invisible rules about how a person should act. Freeing yourself from some minor restrictions like "I have to be a morning person" or "I need to make X amount of money by Y", to grand restrictions like "I have to be a perfect child" or "I'm this gender so I have to act this way" can really set the path of your life to an INTENTIONAL one. Really enjoyed this episode as always!
completely agree with Ellie about not regretting the big things, just the small things, though i would extend it to cover the whole series of small regrets in my life: proceeding from the assumption that i am relatively happy with who i am, i take all of my experiences to be what has led me to be who i am. had i remembered to eat yesterday's left over food instead of making new food today, i wouldnt have been a changed person, so i do regret this, but all the small things that i regret, lumped together, do make quite a sizeable amount of things in my life, so i dont regret my regrets collectively if that makes sense
Prioritizing what others should or ought to regret seems itself delusional more than a moral dilemma. The history of philosophy had this air of mansplaining and complaining to it that I'm appreciating within the context of cultural authority, as a privilege not based upon logic and reason but money and power, and "ex"-plaining becomes a word that better explains itself lol thank you both again for such interesting thoughts.
"The House That Jack Built" (2018) by Lars Von Trier from Denmark might be the greatest depiction of regret in cinema ever! Elle, please do watch this film and wait till the ending.
I would even account age as a necessary factor but rather an factor of likelihood, the older the more like you are to value your actions in a grander sense of all of your actions, the more situations you get in in which you can really do harm (an infant is not really capable of doing a lot harm, while a grown up is) and the more time you got to do harm. Age increases your likelihood of understanding regret but is not necessary for understanding. For example a teenager murdering a human (in whatever context), will have an higher understanding of regret than your average white upper class men at the age of 40.
If you want a masterpiece of media centered around regret, play the ancient video game Planescape: Torment (with bug fixes). "What can change the nature of a man?" "Regret"
Thomas Stearns Eliot was 29 when he wrote the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. I cite this as evidence that at 29, one is mature enough, if not to know regret profoundly, at least to write convincingly about it.
Or compensate by buying an extendable key ring if you can’t replace your locks with fingerprint technology. Humans compensate and this is fuelled by regret. Like gee, I wish I got that wooly mammoth. Maybe I should have had Thor with me?
You done stumbled on to my hobby horse! The word repent often gets swallowed up into projects of moral atonement. While repentance can and often does figure into that type of self-correction, it need not be a matter of explicit virtue. Repentance is simply is a change of mind. Here is an example where repentance is seen as a bad thing in the bible. Exodus 13:17 And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, lest peradventure the people REPENT when they see war, and they return to Egypt: In this example, God does not want the people to repent (or change their mind) from departing Egypt. Modern Christianity tries to make repentance an exclusive act of amending one's sinful ways. However God is found repenting more than man in scripture because a change of mind it is not an exclusive act of recovering good standing. It may be as simple as wanting to have a cookout, then the forecast shows heavy rainfall, so you repent of your cookout plans. Cookouts are not immoral. However you still can repent of them. This is why it gets tricky when preachers will scream at you to repent thinking it is just a matter of repudiating some sinful habit. In the same way kicking is not inherently violent, repenting is not inherently virtuous. One may kick a football through the uprights. One may attend a concert in which The Rockettes incorporate kicks in their dance. Then you have a case in which a man kicks another man in the head rendering him unconscious. It all depends. Kick what? Repent of what? When it comes to the kingdom of God, the repent command has to do with what you think of the Son of God. It is not about an endless cycle of cleaning up moral mistakes to enter paradise. Before Christ, there was a narrative on how to gain admittance to eternal life. In this context, the scripture is instructing the reader to repent, change your mind about what you previously thought about salvation, and believe this new gospel message. Sadly preachers want to control their congregants so they turn repentance into endless campaigns of moral purification in which they have the ability to act as a permeant guide. I know you weren't asking for all that, but hey, we all got a thing. 😉
The cover of this episode catches my eyes！I suppose it's from "In the Mood for Love" directed by Wang Jiawei. I also watched many of his movies. And they always revolve around one theme "regret", and give people unresolved feelings. This cover perfectly matches this episode👍
![Stromae, Pomme - “Ma Meilleure Ennemie” (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Visualizer]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1F3OGIFnW1k/mqdefault.jpg)
I just turned 21 this weekend and have had what feels like an exhausting week. This was the episode i needed thank you overthink🙂
Can you make episode(s) on:
Worry
Uncertainty
Confusion
Indecisiveness?
This was very mind bending for me. It gives me a lot to consider.
(At 24:00) I understand "regret" as a perceived error of volition, a (mistaken) conclusion that one had the ability to act differently with a joint (mistaken) belief that one then could have avoided a perceived negative consequence. The underlying desire I see is one that restores control and understanding of the past, to absolve ourselves of everything from guilt to anger by imbuing our past selves with ignorance or innocence. Remorse (remordimiento), repentance (arrepentimiento), compunction, penitence, self-reproach, etc. etc. is the recognition one was/acted badly or immorally. It's entirely coherent to be repentant (I see I acted immorally) and not regret (… but, I had no choice in the matter) or regretful (This could have been avoided had I chosen differently…) but not repentant (…but I was/am justified despite this).
That whole mess is to say the benefits people apply to regret are really benefits of self-awareness through retrospection. We regret to try and salvage the signal from our noisy past that says we're still virtuous and have will. Not to be super señora católica in the comments, but we are all called to repent and were absolved for/of (original) sin; we don't regret it.
I'm a life coach with an inclination to Buddhist philosophy and Dr. Peña-Guzmán's outlook is exactly what I advocate for clients who are in distress about their life choices and decisions.
Wanted to share my base belief first because I want to talk about the locking your keys into the car story.
Simple mistakes in a high-stakes situation is something that happens quite a lot to lots of other people. For that kind of situation when you've invested into an event (like your conference and flight tickets) it's tempting for the mind to think that not locking your keys would have been the obviously "better" choice. The circumstances that make not locking the keys "better" is that you HAVE to make it into your commitments; and that's exactly the trap that the mind falls into to narrow your vision.
I'm big compared to an infant and small compared to Shaq, but what am I? I just am without anything to compare with. Locking your keys in the car is just locking your keys in the car. When you're at the risk of not making your commitments, locking your keys in the car is a bad thing. But why is that bad? Because the underlying assumption that makes the situation bad is that you HAVE to make it to your commitments, otherwise ______ (some options are I'm an unreliable person, I'm unprofessional, I waste my money, etc). But as an individual with free will in this universe nothing prescribes you to those commitments, and your life won't suddenly flash a GAME OVER sign because you miss the conference. There will be consequences to missing the commitments but in the grand scheme of things who knows how much impact that could have / would have had? To a high schooler SAT scores may seem like a life-or-death stakes event (which is unfortunately what happens so often where I'm from, South Korea) but when you're in your 60's it's such a small part of the whole trajectory of your life, and that trajectory of your life can continue with or without specific ways of manifesting itself.
I know that this may sound very "just remove all feelings from your life" but the core essence of my message is that this perspective can really give your stressed soul a big relief, because in modern society everyone is subject to invisible rules about how a person should act. Freeing yourself from some minor restrictions like "I have to be a morning person" or "I need to make X amount of money by Y", to grand restrictions like "I have to be a perfect child" or "I'm this gender so I have to act this way" can really set the path of your life to an INTENTIONAL one. Really enjoyed this episode as always!
I really love your podcast, keep the work up !
I love your counterfactual regretting concept, David. And, thank you both for being a big help in my life.
completely agree with Ellie about not regretting the big things, just the small things, though i would extend it to cover the whole series of small regrets in my life: proceeding from the assumption that i am relatively happy with who i am, i take all of my experiences to be what has led me to be who i am. had i remembered to eat yesterday's left over food instead of making new food today, i wouldnt have been a changed person, so i do regret this, but all the small things that i regret, lumped together, do make quite a sizeable amount of things in my life, so i dont regret my regrets collectively if that makes sense
Prioritizing what others should or ought to regret seems itself delusional more than a moral dilemma. The history of philosophy had this air of mansplaining and complaining to it that I'm appreciating within the context of cultural authority, as a privilege not based upon logic and reason but money and power, and "ex"-plaining becomes a word that better explains itself lol thank you both again for such interesting thoughts.
"The House That Jack Built" (2018) by Lars Von Trier from Denmark might be the greatest depiction of regret in cinema ever! Elle, please do watch this film and wait till the ending.
I would even account age as a necessary factor but rather an factor of likelihood, the older the more like you are to value your actions in a grander sense of all of your actions, the more situations you get in in which you can really do harm (an infant is not really capable of doing a lot harm, while a grown up is) and the more time you got to do harm. Age increases your likelihood of understanding regret but is not necessary for understanding. For example a teenager murdering a human (in whatever context), will have an higher understanding of regret than your average white upper class men at the age of 40.
It's regrettable that Magnolia isn't just thought of as the longest Aimee Mann video.
Could you do an expisode on the virtue of curiosity
We have one already! www.overthinkpodcast.com/episodes/episode-62
@@OverthinkPodcastPhilosophy 🫶
If you want a masterpiece of media centered around regret, play the ancient video game Planescape: Torment (with bug fixes). "What can change the nature of a man?"
"Regret"
Thomas Stearns Eliot was 29 when he wrote the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. I cite this as evidence that at 29, one is mature enough, if not to know regret profoundly, at least to write convincingly about it.
Or compensate by buying an extendable key ring if you can’t replace your locks with fingerprint technology. Humans compensate and this is fuelled by regret. Like gee, I wish I got that wooly mammoth. Maybe I should have had Thor with me?
You done stumbled on to my hobby horse! The word repent often gets swallowed up into projects of moral atonement. While repentance can and often does figure into that type of self-correction, it need not be a matter of explicit virtue. Repentance is simply is a change of mind. Here is an example where repentance is seen as a bad thing in the bible.
Exodus 13:17
And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, lest peradventure the people REPENT when they see war, and they return to Egypt:
In this example, God does not want the people to repent (or change their mind) from departing Egypt.
Modern Christianity tries to make repentance an exclusive act of amending one's sinful ways. However God is found repenting more than man in scripture because a change of mind it is not an exclusive act of recovering good standing. It may be as simple as wanting to have a cookout, then the forecast shows heavy rainfall, so you repent of your cookout plans. Cookouts are not immoral. However you still can repent of them. This is why it gets tricky when preachers will scream at you to repent thinking it is just a matter of repudiating some sinful habit. In the same way kicking is not inherently violent, repenting is not inherently virtuous. One may kick a football through the uprights. One may attend a concert in which The Rockettes incorporate kicks in their dance. Then you have a case in which a man kicks another man in the head rendering him unconscious. It all depends. Kick what? Repent of what? When it comes to the kingdom of God, the repent command has to do with what you think of the Son of God. It is not about an endless cycle of cleaning up moral mistakes to enter paradise. Before Christ, there was a narrative on how to gain admittance to eternal life. In this context, the scripture is instructing the reader to repent, change your mind about what you previously thought about salvation, and believe this new gospel message. Sadly preachers want to control their congregants so they turn repentance into endless campaigns of moral purification in which they have the ability to act as a permeant guide.
I know you weren't asking for all that, but hey, we all got a thing. 😉
The cover of this episode catches my eyes！I suppose it's from "In the Mood for Love" directed by Wang Jiawei. I also watched many of his movies. And they always revolve around one theme "regret", and give people unresolved feelings. This cover perfectly matches this episode👍
It’s Wong Kar-Wai
☝🏽🧿
Oy!