This one’s mine. Other than talking about the illogical wrath of a deity, or when humorously speaking of enduring the anger of someone else, we don’t use this word. We prefer rage, resentment, fierce anger, vengeance, or a few other synonym-like words (pissed off). I will use the word anger because wrath is archaic. We get angry, not wrathful. I also dislike typing the silent “w,” and a rath is something else.
I could easily write a book about my own anger. If I included the whole enchilada of human nature, it would probably expand to three fat volumes, and be boring. Anger is an emotion. One foolishly considered bad or sinful. While it’s neither, it is dangerous. Anger is a legitimate and real emotion that we may each experience differently. Some people seem to be incredibly patient and tolerant, seemingly never experiencing anger. Others seem explosive, and are sent to (drum roll) Anger Management classes to learn how to behave. I like to call it Charm School.
An old friend of mine had to do that with his work later in life. We grew up together, and as I recall, my friend was exceptionally demonstrative when angry. It didn’t take much before he felt slighted, irritated, or offended. When we were teenagers, I either ignored him or put distance between us until he calmed down. Even later in life, I was still surprised that he could come unglued about things that I considered little more than a trivial nuisance. However, I also had my share of temper tantrums throughout life.
For most of my life, I had a sexist view of anger. I thought men experienced anger more frequently than women, and that acting out our anger was not only what men did, but it was semi-acceptable. I’ve since learned that my view was wrong (read this).
The point of view I had learned was that all other male emotions were unacceptable, and any emotional display was a sign of weakness. What this wrong opinion did for me was to allow me to exhibit angry behaviors regardless of what emotion I may have been feeling. I later learned that I not only had to get in touch with my emotions, I had to start identifying them: fear, shame, sadness, disgust, anxiety, guilt, and many more. I don’t blame society or culture. I take responsibility for my behavior, as should we all.
Another problem with anger is the difficulty of properly identifying it in either ourselves or others. Depression, anxiety, fear, and other emotions may manifest themselves, both inside and out, through behavior that could be considered anger. It’s confusing and figuring this out may take the help of a friend or counselor.
People lash out for a variety of reasons, and it may have little or nothing to do with being angry. I’ll leave it to the experts to follow this rabbit trail, but I suggest we try to pick out the different emotions we feel and deal with them for what they are. I posted about jealousy on Tuesday. Certainly, we feel some anger when we’re jealous. We need to recognize when more than one emotional thing is happening to us at a time. When I was beginning to work on this for myself, I would try to reflect on my feeling and not be pinging off the walls so much.
Then, a close family member accused me of being an “emotionless automoton” who had no feelings and didn’t care about others. I love the memes of a light switch for turning emotions on and off. She was confusing my trying to remain calm with lack of emotion. No such luck.
Politics, religion, sports, and money are four topics that can lead to anger during many seemingly innocuous discussions. If we have not experienced the feelings ourselves, we have certainly seen them acted out by others.
We are social (sociable or not) beings walking around in bodies transporting minds packed with emotional potential. We’re not Vulcans, like Mr. Spock (played by Leonard Nimoy) in the Star Trek series. Spock was of a mixed human-Vulcan heritage race that had mostly conquered his emotions and made them subject to his control. We are simply humans.
Ironically, the death of Spock occurs in the movie The Wrath of Khan, and some think that it’s the best scene in the movie. Forgive my digression; I’m a long time Star Trek, Spock, and Leonard Nimoy fan.
This concludes my series on The Seven Deadly Sins, or Morality. I plan a summation for next Tuesday’s post that may explain my take on this from a broader perspective.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Look both ways and mind the gaps – every day.
We may begin to feel something else. It’s an emotion that we don’t want to feel, but it’s there. It’s a twinge we feel on the inside that is directly related to our disappointment and that other person. We feel envy. We do! It’s normal, and it’s okay as long as we don’t act-out on that negative emotion. I’ve never received recognition or a promotion (that others also wanted) without someone letting me know of their displeasure.
But there’s good news. If you go to Hell, your punishment awaits: you’ll be put in freezing water. I looked it up. Think about that. Hell, fire and all that; and you and I are hanging out at the ice bar. Now, it’s their turn to be envious, right?
As a noun or verb; it means a very strong sexual desire, or a passionate desire for something. The synonym list is downright erotic: sexual desire, sexual appetite, sexual longing, ardor, desire, passion, libido, sex drive, sexuality, biological urge, lechery, lasciviousness, concupiscence, horniness, the hots, randiness, greed, desire, craving, covetousness, eagerness, avidity, cupidity, longing, yearning, hunger, thirst, appetite, hankering desire, be consumed with desire for, find sexually attractive, crave, covet, ache for, burn for, have the hots for, fancy, have a thing about or for, and drool over. (Whew) The key word in all of that is desire. This is not an act, it is merely a basic human want, or as George Carlin put it, “You gotta wanna.”
“It’s what’s in your mind that counts. Your intentions. Wanna is a sin all by itself….it was a sin for you to wanna feel up Ellen, it was a sin for you to plan to feel up Ellen, it was a sin for you to figure out a place to feel up Ellen, it was a sin for you to take Ellen to the place for you to feel her up, it was a sin to try to feel her up, and it was a sin to feel her up. There was six sins in one!” George Carlin, Class Clown, 1972.
I wanna. Before you tar and feather me for being a dirty old man (normal), know that I was raised Irish-Catholic, just like Carlin was. Human sexual desire for other humans is normal, good, healthy, and leads to some of the best moments in our lives, not to mention procreation of the species. A vigorous libido is a good thing to have. But, not everyone agrees with me. Most obviously, many Roman Catholics, and certainly not their leadership. I quote from a piece by Sam Guzman, republished in The Catholic Gentleman.
But this memoir – the thinking, remembering, musing, pulling out old photos, doing ancestry research, looking for old friends and finding some, but reading obits of others — it’s so different because it is about me and people who’ve affected my life. Learning and writing about myself every day is interesting for a guy who disliked writing about himself.
“Sing with me, sing for the years, sing for the tears.”
Let’s make a pencil drawing.
As we draw, we feel things: love, anger, spiritual things, and the passions of life. As we experience our feelings, our work of art changes. Those emotions travel to our hands to control the pencil that is drawing our life.
With 10 days of Nano remaining, I’m rolling along with my memoir. Finding memories and searching for lost feelings. It has helped me to keep writing in a searchable chronological order, so that as I recall things I want to add; I can find the right place to write (draw?) those memories.
“One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.” ~ Oscar Wilde
Is it all that important to be a thin, white, dark-haired, strong, male member of this country? We seem to think so. I hope that continues to change.
I am retired. All the shit/crap that I put up with for all those years of school (nuns-groan), yes, sir and no, sir; kissing up to very few idiot bosses (most were great), scrimping and saving and working – it was all worth it. As my wife would say, “Rave on, dog shit!” And so I do. Every day is a weekend and I can do what I want (with her permission—I’m old, not stupid) whenever.
Our Literary Journey 