A part of the former me returned yesterday, to my own surprise. I haven’t felt angry since a long time. I have probably burned a bridge but I don’t care. My anger related to a rejection. The rejection was politically correct but its timing infuriated me. The release of my anger took away my hurt over being rejected. I even feel better now.
The only thing that still puzzles me is this: why did I decide to fight rather than flight? The wise thing to do was to ignore the rejection and to remain silent. I suppose somehow tension has been building up and a volcanic emotional eruption came to my “rescue”. The subtitle of a 2016 Psychology Today article is clear: Without doubt, anger is the most powerful – and regressive – “cover-up.”
There are several tensions in my life, some old and also some new. Until yesterday, I classified each of them as minor and the aggregate as small. Somehow these tensions must have been cooking before boiling over yesterday. My long period of Zen was brutally interrupted. I now wonder whether my long period of flighting was just covering up the fighter inside me.
The article that I quoted in my 13 August 2016 blog suddenly felt real: “…the adrenaline [] becomes a sort of poison that flows through the entire system because no amount of physical effort is exerted to consume it.” Indeed it felt as if my judgement was being clouded.
Releasing anger from people – or “anger management” – should release these boiling tensions. Essentially, that is a positive effort. Politicians use anger management to their advantage. Appealing to fears triggers anger. An angry voter is more likely to vote. Voting releases the anger. Moreover, a lot is forgotten anyway after 4 years.
Anger management is about genuine, existing and individual fears. Fear mongering is another type of anger management: false, new and societal anger and fears based on bigotry, prejudice, twisted truths or plain lies. The recurring messages of these fear mongers creates toxic minds and probably even human time-bombs. Someday they will go off and scaremongers will blame anyone but themselves.
The ironic part is that these fear mongers hide behind democracy and the right of free speech. However, once in power, they will restrict democracy and the right of free speech as much as possible. It takes a fear monger, to know their danger.
Democracy doesn’t really have an answer against these deliberate abuses. Democracy still has a naïve belief that voters will prefer long term stability over short term change. Political anger management – at both sides of the aisle – is directed at fear, temptation, and the (short term) pleasure of retaliation in the voting booth. Also see my 23 August 2016 blog on Temptation.
I was able to release my anger at the person who caused it and to cleanse my toxic mind. There are however many people out there who are only building up anger. Either genuine or false anger created by fear mongers. Suggesting to them to take matters in their own hands (eg, 2nd Amendment remark) is far worse than just being irresponsible or playing mind games. It’s public mind control.
Land of Confusion (1986) by Genesis
artists, lyrics, video, Wiki-1, Wiki-2
There’s too many men
Too many people
Making too many problems
And not much love to go round
Can’t you see
This is a land of confusion
Note: all markings (bold, italic, underlining) by LO unless stated otherwise.
0 Comments