True, but in the same note, denying a part of who you are just hurts you in the long run. When those emotions eventually come out, you won't know how to handle them.
"Who you are" is never set in stone. Our behaviors reinforce our personality. You seem to be implying that if we inhibit our behaviors, they will remain perfectly intact and will inevitably erupt at some point in the future. That isn't necessarily so. Personality is dynamic, and behavior, and inhibition is an important quality of personality.
No, I am just refering to parts of your emotions/personality that you as a person would repress because you are ashamed/fearful/whatever of them. You might be able to repress them forever, but you never know what might trigger them to be released.
You are still assuming that one's personality is immutable, and that repressing whatever parts of one's personality is an exercise in self-denial that has no guarantee of success and must be maintained forever. This assumption is false from a behavioral perspective. Behavior shapes personality. That's not a controversial idea; that's a part of psychology. Your original quote, which I included above, asserts in no uncertain terms the false idea that we cannot change who we are, and to even try is harmful and risky. I don't think you realized that this implies we should behave as unfettered hedonists.
What you're talking about is unconditional self-indulgence, a behavioral trait which, absent external limiting factors, is a guaranteed path to self-destruction. Inhibition is not an inherently wrong or bad quality. Our biological instincts, our desire for immediate physical gratification, our emotional pettiness, our imprudence and small-mindedness, our impulsiveness, and a whole host of other human qualities...these are all frequently counterproductive to people's ideals of character and personal ambitions. Inhibition is a way of rationally or at least dutifully imposing self-discipline on oneself in order to achieve something more desirable than the basic short-term satisfaction of uncondtional self-indulgence.
Have you ever drank/taken drugs/not been sober? I ask because that statement leads me to believe that you haven't. A six pack every once in a while is not going to hurt anyone. I promise.
My personal history is superfluous to my understanding of the topic at hand. Does it matter if I have or do not have experience with being intoxicated? You seem to be suggesting that it does, that if I have never had such experience then I am not credible in speaking about the issue. That's a very old, very popular logical fallacy, but a fallacy nonetheless. The human brain has the power to conceptualize, which makes it possible for us to understand things without having experienced them firsthand. Oftentimes, this dispassionate understanding is superior to personal experience, which can be jaded and narrow in perspective. What is needed for a good conceptualization of an experience that one has never had is good information and good reasoning skills. I don't think my reasoning skills are in doubt here. As for having good information, maybe it will reassure you to know that I do not live in a bubble. You're not logically obliged to take my word for it, but you and I have a nice history here on the forums, and maybe that has built up enough goodwill on your part to give me the benefit of the doubt when we have a disagreement that I am not automatically wrong. A healthy consideration of my position may prove conducive to your own understanding of human nature.
I said in that quote above that "inhibition is not an inherently wrong or bad quality." The flipside is also true; it is not inherently good, either. One of the worst things about Christianity is its grotesque doctrine of inhibiting a great deal of human nature, which I believe is key in understanding the genocidal, tyrannical history of that barbaric religion. But between these extremes of no inhibition and absolute inhibition is a more rational solution, one that makes it possible for human beings to build character above that of the animals without denying their own, unique perspective and subjectivity in the universe. "Inhibition" in its best sense is just another word for making good choices about the way we're going to behave ourselves.
The reason my last post came off as opposed to substance abuse is that so little good comes of mind-altering substances, that
abusing them, per se, is as unwarranted as believing that every hand you're dealt will be a four-of-a-kind. You'll go broke pretty fast with that kind of thinking. The human mind is a delicate creature, and throwing toxic chemicals at it in an uncontrolled, recreational fashion is far more likely to screw it up than to make it better. However,
controlled use of mind-altering substances is not something I oppose. "Controlled" use can mean moderation instead of excess, like taking a glass of beer with dinner instead of knocking back a six-pack at a frat party. "Controlled" use can also mean following a prescription regimen rather than feeding a desire, like being diagnosed with some psychological disorder and taking the recommended dosage of a prescribed drug to combat it, instead of swallowing an unlabeled bottle of someone else's pills for a lark. So I'm not saying that we should never, under any circumstances, alter our minds from their natural state. What I am saying is that any attempt to do so frivolously is almost certain to detract from our state of mind rather than improve upon it.
Let's not beat around the bush. Substance abuse is the surrender of one's identity to the whimsy of neurochemistry. It is the surrender of one's judgment to the same. Intoxication by mind-altering substances helps cause everything from car wrecks to flunk-outs. We know the effects of recreational drugs, and none of them lead to an overall improvement in one's cognitive faculties. At the very best, we could only call them an expensive, deleterious source of perceptive inspiration. But that's something you don't need to be wasted to achieve, and in my opinion, an inhibition against substance abuse is a good choice.
