10/6/2010 5:43

Anger

Anger arises from discordance between my observations and my expectations for how the world ought to be. That is, first I claim ownership of the world and then I find that this claim is not immediately efficacious.

Anger is invariably alienating. Anger is based on setting myself against the world and it inspires similarly antagonistic responses. The result of anger can only be division and separation.

I can be angry with myself, but only to the extent that I find me a stranger to myself. This experience of self-alienation is not uncommon to us humans, and therefore self-anger is also well known in human experience.

Anger carries an illusion of being motivating. Anger does raise my energy level but at the cost of focus and direction (not to mention the high physiological costs). Anger suppresses rationality and goal-setting. I can be motivated by anger to move but not to be productive.

There is a negative motivational component to anger. Anger is uncomfortable and disruptive; this gives rise to the negative motivation to avoid being angry or making another person angry. This negative motivation, this avoidance, extends the alienating aspects of anger itself.

Anger is at its core a response to threat. Anger's undirected response to threat can be protective; it can set an assailant off momentarily and allow a more directed response to succeed. Since I am privileged with social and economic power, with safety, health, and generally orderly surroundings, I am not much or often threatened and I ought to be angry little and seldom.