Anger

(Image from Google Images search of "anger." Subtitle: "A Rant on Anger & Ranting: Robots Don't Rant" comedyrants.com)

I have some disjointed thoughts on anger that I'd like to share.

Anger can be a very useful experience. Most of the time, anger incites us to action; that is, when we get angry about something, we usually feel impulses and think thoughts that involve us doing something about the situation about which we are angry. So in that regard, anger is adaptive and normal, you know? After all, sometimes we need to feel all fired up about something that isn't working for us before we can do something to change it.

Anger can be a very destructive force. There's a saying that goes something like, "Anger is like a hot coal: the only person who gets hurt by it is the one who holds onto it." And that's true. Anger that isn't somehow released gets sublimated into any variety of negative, even destructive (as I said) experiences. One of the laws of physics and nature is that energy can be neither created nor destroyed. Similarly, buried anger (and buried emotions of any kind, for that matter) always find a way to the surface, whether it manifests as passive-aggressive behaviors, muddled thinking, or explosive, disproportional responses to frustrations, for example.

The habit of suppressing anger has a particularly destructive potential. Folks who don't know how to release their anger oftentimes exhibit frightening, abusive, or otherwise dysfunctional behavior. Such behavior can be directed outward to others, or inward toward themselves, and create all sorts of problems, issues, and heartache.

Anger is a powerful force, and is to be respected.

Anger, by my way of looking at it, is a "secondary emotion." That is, anger is usually an automatic response to an internal or external experience which leaves a person feeling powerless, vulnerable, helpless, confused, or sad. It is important to recognize and assume ownership of these more "primary" feelings, because they are usually the key to the anger's release.

More on this another time. Thanks for reading.