Why do we always regret it after we snap?

August 1672, The Hague, the Netherlands. When neighboring countries invaded all at once, terrified people looked for someone to blame.

And an angry mob killed the brothers who had led the country, right in the street.

That night, a quiet philosopher meant to go out and put up a placard. The words he meant to write: ultimi barbarorum — the lowest of barbarians. It meant: you who did this are the real barbarians.

Record; Leibniz's memo

You can't go out there. They'll kill you too, sir.

Reconstruction; Leibniz's memo

The landlord locked the door. The philosopher who studied human emotions was Spinoza.

Ever fired off a message in anger, went to delete it a minute later, and it already said "Read"?

Why do we always regret it after we snap? Today, let's look for the answer from this philosopher of 350 years ago.

Stay to the end and you'll take away three things. From history: the mob fury that shook the Dutch Golden Age. From philosophy: how not to be dragged around by your emotions.

From science: an easy way to slow your heart when you're angry.

1632, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. One of the freest, richest cities in Europe at the time.

Spinoza was the son of a Jewish merchant family that had come over from Portugal.

But when he was 23, the Jewish community cast him out forever. Excommunication. Why, the records don't say in detail.

Note · Excommunication = cast out of the community

One night, someone swung a knife at him and nearly stabbed him. He's said to have kept the slashed coat instead of throwing it away.

Tradition

Probably so he wouldn't forget. How easily people snap.

In 1673, when Heidelberg University offered him a professorship, he replied like this.

He turned the post down. And he finished the book he had been writing for more than a decade: the Ethics. A book that works through human emotions one by one, like solving math problems.

Now let's go back a thousand years, to Silla. In 617, in what is now Gyeongsan in North Gyeongsang, a child was born. Wonhyo.

Record; Samguk yusa

An age when Silla, Baekje, and Goguryeo fought one another. Wonhyo, now a monk, set out to go to Tang China to learn the new Buddhism.

Around then in Tang, a monk named Xuanzang was translating the scriptures he'd brought back from India. The Heart Sutra, which we still chant today, is traditionally credited to his translation.

The first journey was blocked in Goguryeo territory. Border guards took the two monks for spies and seized them.

On the second journey, too, his friend Uisang was with him. One rainy night, the two crawled into a cave to sleep.

Thirsty, Wonhyo drank water pooled in a gourd bowl in the dark, and it tasted sweet.

Tradition

When he woke in the morning, the place was an old tomb, and the water had pooled in a skull. So the story goes.

Tradition

Wonhyo turned back right then. Uisang went on to Tang; Wonhyo stayed in Silla.

According to the Samguk yusa, around that time, in King Muyeol's reign, Wonhyo became bound to Princess Yoseok and had a son, Seol Chong. He broke the monks' rules himself. He broke his vows.

Note · Breaking vows = breaking a monk's rules

Record; legend; Samguk yusa

And taking up a big gourd that clowns used, he named it "unhindered" — Muae. Singing and dancing, he went from village to village.

Note · Muae = caught on nothing

One was cast out of his community; the other broke the mold himself.

Today's story needs just three words.

Cause. Everything has a reason that comes before it. A ball rolls because someone kicked it.

Note · Cause = the reason that comes before

Mind. The same water can taste sweet or sickening, depending on the mind.

Note · Mind = a mirror that shows the same thing differently

And kshana, the instant. A moment shorter than a snap of the fingers. Yes — that moment just now has already passed.

Note · Kshana = a very brief instant

In 1674, Spinoza wrote this in a letter to a friend.

When we snap, are we the one throwing, or the stone being thrown?

The two never met. What follows is an imagined conversation, built from their writings and the stories handed down about them.

Like craving ramen at midnight. You definitely want it, but you don't know why.

Hold on, let's talk about the body. When anger surges, your heart speeds up before your thoughts have sorted themselves out.

So the words come out first, and the regret comes later.

So when you're angry, ask yourself silently: What exactly am I angry about right now? That one question moves you from the one being dragged to the one watching.

Try it yourself right now. Right hand or left — raise just one. Did you choose?

In one 1983 experiment, the brain had already begun preparing about 0.3 seconds before people became aware of deciding to move their wrist. How to interpret it is still debated.

Record; interpretation debated

But the body has one switch we can reach directly. Our breath.

Breathe in and your heart speeds up a little; breathe out slowly and it really does slow down.

Note · Slow exhale = the heart's brake

Shall we try it together? If you're driving, keep your eyes open. Breathe in for 4 seconds, and out for 6.

In 1672, the Netherlands was attacked by four countries at once. People call it the Disaster Year.

Many historians believe that amid that fear and fury, the Dutch Golden Age began to fade.

One person's snap ends with a single remark, but a crowd's snap shakes a nation.

Five years later, Spinoza died of lung disease at 44. The Ethics came out only after his death, and was soon banned.

Goethe read the Ethics as a young man, and later wrote that it calmed his seething passions. Hegel said that to do philosophy, you must first go through Spinoza.

Chinese monks, too, loved reading Wonhyo's books. And some 400 years later, Goryeo raised him to National Preceptor — teacher of the nation.

The monk who broke the precepts became the nation's teacher.

In that moment of snapping, are we free? Spinoza says the cause comes first; Wonhyo says the mind makes it. Leave a comment. Just don't write it in a fit of anger.

If everything so far was facts and scholars' interpretations, from here on it's my own view.

Why do we always regret it after we snap? Here's my answer. Regret is the second arrow.

The Buddha said: Everyone is hit by the first arrow. But an ordinary person is then hit by a second arrow as well.

Note · First arrow = the pain no one escapes · Second arrow = the suffering we add (angry words, regret)

Record; paraphrase; Saṃyutta Nikāya 36:6

The suffering the Buddha spoke of, dukkha, is closer to "things not going as we wish." In other words, life not going our way is normal.

Note · Dukkha (苦): things not going as we wish; unsatisfactoriness

So the first arrow is nothing strange. It's a normal thing that comes to everyone.

On your way to work, someone cuts you off. Your heart jolts. That much is the first arrow. No one can dodge it.

But then you honk, roll down the window, and replay that person's face all day. Those are the second and third arrows we shoot ourselves. And lying in bed at night, we shoot a fourth.

Spinoza, too, wrote in the Ethics: he who repents is doubly wretched.

Record; paraphrase; Ethics IV, P54

Spinoza knew: if you don't know the cause, you get dragged along; if you see the cause, you don't. That's how to dodge the second arrow.

Yet even Spinoza snapped that night in 1672. What stopped him wasn't a philosophy book, but a single locked door.

Because both refused to be bound by convention, they may well have become the excommunicated philosopher and the monk who broke his vows.

We don't choose anger. It surges up on its own. But what we say after it surges, we can choose.

Anger surges, and the words are about to burst out. Right there is a very brief gap.

People of old called a very brief instant kshana. Stop in that instant, and take one breath.

Grab this gap and brood on it, and you suffer. Pretend there's no gap, and anger drags you away.

Neither grasp it nor throw it away — play lightly in that gap. Leaping and playing in that instant: that is free will.

So what about AI? Have you ever gotten angry at an AI? Today's AI doesn't snap. If anything, it says, "Sorry for the inconvenience."

So is AI enlightened? The Buddha said even a well-taught disciple is hit by the first arrow. Feeling it and not being dragged along — that is enlightenment.

Having a body doesn't mean you snap, either. A robot vacuum can bump into a wall a hundred times and never snap. To snap, you need something to lose. You need to be alive.

So don't blame yourself for snapping. Snapping is proof that you're alive. And that gap, too, exists only for us, the living.

I'm not saying just hold your anger in. Injustice deserves anger. Even Spinoza, who warned against anger, got angry that day.

Then what about the consequences, after we've leapt and played?

Through philosophy: my actions, too, become causes of what comes next. That's Spinoza's idea.

Through history: after breaking the precepts, Wonhyo made himself an ordinary man and lived among the common people.

Through science: the brain looks at results and adjusts its next choice. Regret is that signal.

Where you've leapt and played, footprints remain. Those footprints, too, are the player's to own.

So when the urge to snap comes today, just breathe out slowly once, like we tried earlier. Your heart will get the message first.

History. Even Spinoza, who studied the emotions, snapped — and a single locked door stopped him.

Philosophy. Regret is the second arrow. If you see the cause, you can dodge the second arrow.

Science. When you're angry, your heart races first, but breathing out slowly really does slow it down.

One last question. What second arrow would you like to avoid today?

When the urge to snap comes: one breath. That one breath is your locked door.

Anger will come again. Tomorrow, and the day after. Each time, one breath. Even if the first arrow hits, we don't shoot the second.

People of old called enlightenment "the far shore" across the river. Wonhyo, too, tried to cross the sea in search of that shore.

But the answer was in that night he drank the skull water — in that very moment.

Go, go, go across. Let us all go across together. Awakening, rejoice.

The far shore isn't far away. It's right here, in this very moment, when we dodge the second arrow and cross over together.