#Resource Gurdjieff Gurdjieff would likely agree with much of what you're suggesting, though he'd frame it differently. Based on the search results, here's what his teaching might contribute to your reflection: On emotions being "self-created" — Gurdjieff would say yes, but not in the way we typically think. He taught that most people live mechanically, with emotions arising automatically from conditioning rather than from any genuine inner self. He described many negative emotions as "borrowed" from external influences and habit patterns rather than truly generated by a conscious individual. The event may be real, but our emotional reaction is mechanical — a habitual program running unconsciously. On sadness versus anger — This is where Gurdjieff diverges from your framing. He wouldn't rank emotions by "maturity." Instead, he'd ask: Are you conscious of this emotion, or identified with it? Both sadness and anger become problematic when we lose ourselves in them — when "sadness becomes my sadness" and we eat it, inhabit it, forget ourselves entirely. The distinction isn't between types of emotion but between being in sleep versus being awake within the experience. His definition of conscience — Interestingly, Gurdjieff defined conscience as "consciousness in our feeling part." So for him, the maturity of an emotion depends on whether consciousness is present within it. Can you observe your sadness from within without becoming it? That awareness itself transforms the relationship to the emotion. On there being "no set way to view things" — He'd probably nod at this, but add: that's precisely why we need work on ourselves. Most people drift through multiple conflicting worldviews mechanically. True freedom comes not from accepting that all perspectives are equally valid, but from developing the capacity to hold awareness regardless of which perspective arises. So where might he challenge you? On the idea that sadness or anger themselves are the problem. For Gurdjieff, the issue is identification — forgetting oneself in the emotion. Through disciplined self-observation and self-remembering (maintaining presence while feeling), one can watch emotions arise without feeding them, eventually transforming mechanical reactions into conscious experiences. What's your sense of this? Does the "non-identification" angle resonate with what you're exploring?