Thursday, December 6, 2007

Constructive Anger

The consequences of anger are often more destructive than the causes of anger.
MARCUS AURELIUS

The Stoics were a swell bunch of guys. They have had a profound influence on my thinking, and their insights are really at the core of much of the cognitive behavior/rational emotive school of psychology of which I am a big fan. But the reason I am not a Stoic is because there is no escaping the emotions. Evolution has hard wired each of us to be feeling animals. The best a Stoic can do is fake it.

There are certain things I know to be true. You are going to get mad, and you are going to be sad. If your happiness depends on being free of these emotions, you will never be happy. The Stoics admitted that none of them had ever achieved happiness.

When it comes to happiness, I subscribe to Aristotle these days and his concept of the Golden Mean. Virtue lies in the mean between excess and deficiency. I will now apply this to the issue of anger.

If you get pissed off easily and fly off the handle and hurt people and yourself, you are being excessive in your anger. I call this destructive anger. Destructive anger is what causes road rage or domestic violence or workplace shootups or the Virginia Tech Massacre. This shit is senseless and stupid. But all of us have fallen prey to this ignorance at one point or another. I know I have. For me, it ended with a couple of bloodied lips and some bruises. For most of us, it is as innocuous as cussing somebody out. We want some vengeance. We want someone to pay.

Revenge is a waste of time. You will almost never get back what is taken, and your efforts at revenge will probably cost you more than the original transgression. You are almost always better off to let that shit go.

On the flip side, you have people who suppress their anger to an unhealthy degree. They are still angry, but they have given up. We know this anger as depression. It is also destructive. A wise person said that depression was anger without enthusiasm. Depressed people are folks who turn their anger in on themselves. They feel powerless, so they give up. But the anger is still there smoldering. This is why nutjobs are often depressed before going on a rampage. In their sick minds, they feel a surge of happiness as they turn their anger outward and unleash it on the world. Suicide turns to homicide. It makes sense to them. It is stupid and tragic for the rest of us.

For me, the proper measure of anger is what I call "constructive anger." It is ok to be pissed off. This is a natural and rational response to people or things that work against us. For instance, if a thief steals your laptop computer, what can you do but be pissed off? The only thing that remains is to determine what your response is going to be. For me, I would express that anger and lament the loss of all that quality internet porn I had downloaded. Then, I would go buy another laptop and post to my blog about the loss and call the thief a dirty cocksucker or whatever. Eventually, I will laugh about it and move on. Living well is the best revenge.

Now, I could go on a one man campaign of vigilantism and hunt down computer thieves, viz. Charlie Bronson in Death Wish. But this would result in me winding up in jail taking it up the ass from computer thieves, bike thieves, dope fiends, etc. Or I could be stupid and decide that I can never own anything ever again because somebody is just going to steal my shit. Then, I swallow a bunch of pills and end up in the hospital with a tube in my dick and more tubes in my arm.

I think a better way to go is to find ways to discourage thieves. It may result in a new product that I could patent and make money from producing. Or I might simply decide to be more careful with my stuff. This is constructive anger. This is the type of thing John Walsh did when his son Adam was senselessly murdered. The result is America's Most Wanted and other projects Walsh has pursued. John Walsh made the world a better place because he was pissed off. You can do the same thing.

It is ok to get mad. Just channel the fury into a productive channel. When Steve Jobs got fired from Apple, he founded Pixar. Not too bad. If you get fired, get another job and work harder on that one than the one you got fired from. Go work for the competition if that will make you feel better. If you get your car stolen, buy a better car than the one you had. Pretty soon, you will feel great when you get pissed off. Anger can be a great motivator. I know it is for me.

Constructive anger is the way to go. Fight for the things you want. Don't hurt other people, and don't hurt yourself. Say what you think and don't hold back on it. Anger in this constructive mode is what makes the world a better place. Somewhere in the past, a caveman got pissed off with rubbing two sticks together, so he found some flint. The rest is history. Make your anger count for something. You'll be glad you did.

0 comments:

Post a Comment