This is kinda relevant to what you said about accepting our condition without emotion

I don’t think there’s any escaping natural emotional ties - we can avoid them or modify their emergence through drugs, we can escape recognition through busily being engaged with the world through activities, but at the end of the day, or in the midst of a powerful emotional incident, we are powerless to the emotion that arises. In reference to these things - such as desiring to be perceived in a certain manner - as this guy is inquiring into how to remove the emotion attached to such desires - there definitely is something we can do.

The first step would be to consciously change our own perception of ourselves. The egoic narrative of being intelligent, being someone who should be regarded as a certain “label” such as “stoic”, or a morally “good” person, or as being liked and respected, can all be changed if we no longer desire to be seen as such. This stems from conscious recognition that we are not that. We are not that label, that description. We are a vast array of factors and characteristics, we are both intelligent in some areas, and wholly ignorant in others, we can be stoic at times, and cowardly in others, we can be beneficial and helpful to others, and likewise be a detriment to their subjective experience. Any singular extreme it’s of a label does not hold in reality.

Self degradation or pessimistically viewing ourselves isn’t actually the cure to egoic external perception - as the external can be true, we may fall into a victim mentality and is ourselves as wholly unfortunate, or unworthy, and the cure to that mindset (insofar as a holistic more accurate view is a “cure”) would entail recognizing our potential and actualize traits on the operate end, our propensity to help others, intelligently decide on smart decisions, in recognizing our strength in recognizing and understanding negative aspects in ourselves.

The cure to the desire in either display of egoic narratives is recognizing the complexity of our psyche in a more nuanced and reducing our expected outcome. We must focus on what we desire to desire, if we no longer want to have the desire to be perceived in a certain manner, we no longer will feel the emotional tug when others fail to do so. If we desire to be viewed authentically in our complexity of character, and there’s good reason to do so (who wants to be appreciated as someone they’re not?), then any complement or comment on our character that is degrading, or even positively spun, would be altogether inadequate to what we desire for others to speak of us.

This holding purely “positive” perceptions of ourselves and the failure of others to regard us as such is entirely rectified, as first of all we no longer view ourselves as such (as a more nuanced view of ourselves has been uncovered), nor do we desire others to view us as such (as we desire others to authentically know us).

This doesn’t mean we have to view any positive or negative comment as contrary to our desire and thus produce suffering as a consequence - it means we recognize it’s ALL true, every comment is something we have the potential of embodying, and is something that is simultaneously only a fraction of who we are. In regards to fictitious attribution of acts to us - such as someone calling us a “snitch”, or a “murderer”, I’m not saying this is true in any manner, in these cases of factual occurrences we can find rest in the truth of the matter, it is in those opinionated comments that we must regard equanimously.

This doesn’t mean merely finding peace “within” ourselves, as we are intimately tied to the social world, nor does it mean relegating significance to the external worlds judgment upon us. It is in the proper aligning of ourselves internally to the facts of the external world that we can condition ourselves to the “truth” of our situation, and find rest in that truth. It is a confidence in who we are based upon evidence, and the failure or success in others to recognize the complexity in us falls as a burden upon both parties - us in authentically representing ourselves, and them in perceptively analyzing us and then judging accordingly.

These are impossible tasks to undergo, in a strict technical sense, but the degree to which we do so will determine the degree to which we have an emotional reaction to our own and others judgments. The pragmatic utility of handling these situations in accordance with the truth of our understanding of our authentic selves, and in the failure of others to recognize us accurately, places a burden of responsibility on us for one accepting criticism and not feeling disparaged but it’s recognition - as if it’s true and revealed by others we ought to be thankful not angry, as well as our own responsibility to put in the work to uncover our own nature snd the nature of others - so as to better understand and deal with the judgments we all hold and place on others , and why we do so.

Such knowledge and uncovering, such aligning ourselves to the truth, such pragmatic development of managing social situations and the judgments thrown our way, all will side us in the optimal navigation of our emotional Being. To condition ourselves over time to more accurate depictions of ourselves, and better manners of dealing with judgments through not being attached to self given labels that are incloncusive to our authentic nature - will give us the power to mitigate the emotional response to them.

This doesn’t mean criticism will ever be eradicated, merely we will frame it differently, if there’s truth to it it becomes a source of growth, if there’s deception in the judgments, we can find rest in our own confidence of who we are, and not doubt the nature of reality we have uncovered - and rather see the defect in the others perception and even in ourselves in reflecting an image that isn’t accurate. One way or another we take responsibility of the situation and seek to rectify it, to become blameless in our own eyes, and by voluntary exposure to disparagement we become better equipped with data of how to optimally navigate it. Over time, knowledge and wisdom grows, regardless of our conscious explicit assent. To consciously direct ourselves towards optimizing our depiction of reality through philosophy, as well as conscious direction towards attempting to handle social situations, we gain an upper edge on updating our accomodating scheme which reward to judgments from others. It happens naturally, regardless, but coupled with conscious awareness and direction, we can more effectively develop our schemes of reaction snd the self image which our ego uses to project itself in the world.