Zen and apathy

Proteus wrote: The difference between these two scenarios is a matter of acceptance. It is a matter of "reacting" in scenario 1, vs "responding" in scenario 2.

Apathy would be letting the kid keep running toward the water, watching the them fall in, and taking no part in the situation.

Reminds me of the customer service class for service desk personnel I just took. One of the main principles of dealing with a different client/customer is this, learning to respond rather than react. Its a principle that can easily be applied to all areas of life and I recognized that immediately. It is a very Taoist/Zen/Stoic Jedi sort of thing.

Proteus, I partially disagree with your last post, but I don't think I can properly express the reason, because I'm not entirely sure what it is yet.

Proteus, i also disagree with your last post partially because i believe it is not a good scenario for zen and apathy. Zen and apathy are still an emotional state at least that is what i believe. Zen is where you feel totally relaxed and nothing someone does or says will effect your mood it's a state of peace so to make it seem like you're just controlling how your emotions react with what is occurring is not quite right. Apathy is a lack of interest so in fact you're first scenario at least in my opinion is off since if you were in that situation you wouldn't do anything you wouldn't care what happens and it wouldn't effect your emotions in any way mostly because you're at a point where emotions for others don't matter.