"Given his position as director of the Institute for Othering and Belonging at UC Berkeley and as a prominent voice for equity, I expected our conversation-centered on funding cuts and Department of Justice investigations into colleagues at UC Berkeley-to be tinged with shared outrage. But john didn't meet my indignation with more fire. He simply smiled-a true "Duchenne" smile-and said, "I just stick to my values.""
"That sentence has echoed in me ever since. It clarified something I had only been circling: that equanimity is an act of resistance, an assertion of dignity. It is the quiet refusal to be swept up in the emotional hyper-reactivity that so often masquerades as moral clarity. It is not indifference-it is passion tempered with wisdom. Not detachment-but perspective. Outrage and the illusion of clarity"
In a time of visible corruption and rising political violence, outrage has become the default language of public life. Equanimity, rightly understood, functions as active resistance rather than passivity, asserting dignity and refusing emotional hijacking. A personal encounter with john a. powell models this stance: when faced with expected mutual indignation, he responded calmly and said, "I just stick to my values." Equanimity is described as passion tempered with wisdom and perspective rather than detachment. Outrage triggers adrenaline, cortisol, and testosterone, priming confrontation, while exacting physiological costs and narrowing perception, which distorts understanding of others. When gripped by anger or indignation, cognitive clarity diminishes.
Read at Psychology Today
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