Mind Mastery: Inner Athena - the guide to rationality

95% of our decisions are emotionally driven and when you tie your decision to your emotions, you become irrational. You don’t care about the long-term consequences it will cause. You only care about the instant gratification It will give you. You don’t even try to come to a logical conclusion on why and how this decision might seem to benefit you. You get carried away by your emotions and make decisions “spontaneously”. These irrational decisions, together, will fuck up your plans.

Taking control over our emotions is an art and It starts with realizing that your emotions are controlling you. That doing something just because “you feel like doing it” or vice versa, is a very bad decision. Instead, try to figure out why you feel that way. Is this emotion original or was it planted by someone or something?. Many times we find ourselves angry for no reason but upon introspection you realize that the root of this emotions is often jealousy or ego. An emotion derived by another one. When you realize that your anger doesn’t make sense and it’s no one’s fault but your’s, It goes away.

Human emotions are a complex concept to make complete sense of, even for researchers. Our early ancestors, who were not able to speak, used emotions to communicate. They could look at each other facial and understand if they are happy, sad or angry. But Now, we can actually speak to each other. We created languages to explicitly communicate and our emotions, which seemly have lost it’s purpose, have become an inner voice in our heads. So, we have two layers of emotions, one is at the core and is the root for our all emotions motivating us to our basic needs for eg, fear, anger, desire, disgust etc. The other layer, on the top of our head, is what we want to show others. These emotions are tightly bound to our surroundings and are mostly complex, i.e., combination of the core emotions, like envy, guilt, shame, pride etc., which are more nuanced.

The second layer of emotions make us social animals. They led to the “tribe” mentality and are reason for our efforts to feel belonged or to be a part of something big. And these control us. When we are lying, we communicate to others using two mediums, one is by speaking, and other is by emotions

Sometimes we see people bursting out loud, shouting, throwing things and acting completely different. When asked about it after, they say, “something caught to them” and they didn’t know why it happened. They speak, like that’s not their true nature and something just possessed them , when in-fact, that is their true nature and they have stopped acting. These people are very dangerous. They are masters in putting on a mask when they are social and hide their true intentions with other that match with the group they are in.

So, How do you take control over your emotions and become rational? You need to bring out your “inner Athena”.

Inner Athena

Pericles was one of the greatest rulers of Athens. His rule is known as the “golden age” of Athena. Unlike other rulers, He was not a great warrior or orator, he was just rational. His ways were odd but the results were the greatest. The city prospered unprecedentedly under his rule and no one was able to question him, because his policies always lead to the greater good of Athens. All the money that he helped save, was used to build “The Public works Project” that transformed Athens. He built temples, statues of Athena putting every craftsman to work uniting the whole city. Even in the hardest times, like when Sparta waged war, his wise decisions would have led to the defeat of Sparta. (He was killed by a plague, and without his guide Athen became a colossal failure.)

His oration was strange. Unlike other politicians that make their speeches dramatic and rhetoric, His speech sounded logical. air tight with reasoning. It was like a scientist defend his thesis.

So, How is he so rational? How does his decisions always lead to great outcomes even when there are so many factors in play. He came up with something that is historically unique and devastating powerful. He called it his “Inner Athena”.

He saw that people needed something to worship. The human mind need something to direct it’s attention to. For most of us, It’s ego, family, god. For pericles, It was “Neus”, meaning intelligence in ancient greek. According to him, Neus created order. It was the source for any intelligence and to him Godess Athena embodied this. Athena(Theos + Neus) means “god’s intelligence”, she was literally born from Zeus head. But her intelligence had a unique style. eminently practical, female and earthy. In essence, Athena stood for rationality, the greatest gift of gods to mortals.

To cultivate his inner athena, Peracles had to find a way to master his emotions. emotions make us think inward, away from neus. They cloud our vision. Peracles never took decisions in the moment, or while under the influence of a strong emotion. Instead, He introspected his emotions. Under scrutiny, he would realise that his anger was not justified and lost interest in being angry. Sometimes, He would confide himself alone in his chamber calming himself, becoming stoic. Slowly, the voice of Athena would come to him. His political goal was only one this, “The greater good of Athens”.

He prevented unnecessary wars even if it meant less personal glory for him. He avoided campaigns. He imagined all the possible outcomes of a strategy before implementing it. With a calm spirit and open mind he led the true golden age of Athens. His rationality infected the entire city.

Most of us think we are rational, but we are not. As stupid as this many, we are not born with the power of rationality, we must train and practice it. We must cultivate our inner Athena. The Voice of Athena simply stands for the higher power existing in all of us. The potential you have must felt when you are calm and focused, the great ideas that come to you after much thinking. You are rarely connected to it because of the weight of emotions. You are affected by all the drama that people around you churn up. You are continually reacting to all the excitement that your phones give you, experiencing waves of dopamine peaks and troughs, that make it hard to focus. Your attention is pulled this and that and without a rationale to guide, you can’t reach your goals.

You can change this in just a moment, by cultivating your inner Athena - You worship rationality and value it the most and that will serve you as your guide.

The first thing you can do is to scrutinize your emotions. Why the anger/resentment? Is it well established or is it just a cover-up to your envy? Under introspection, You will think for yourself and your emotions will lose the hold on you.

Emotions narrow your mind, focusing on the immediate attention and make ideas that often backfire. With a calm spirit, you can open your mind to solutions that serve the greater good to you. The solutions that will help you for longer time. You will take the time to assess your strategy before acting.

The inner voice becomes clearer and clearer. You will avoid all the distractions from people trying to create drama and apply your rationality to think past them. Just like your muscles, which improve in response to exercises, your mind will become stronger and resilient. With a clear and calm mind, you will see answers and creative solutions that no one can envision.

That’s all for this post. Hoping you will cultivate your inner Athena and achieve rationality. See you next week with another interesting post.