Hey gang, I'm a pretty laid back person. I'm sure a lot of you would say the same. Conflict resolution was basically a theme of my childhood, living in a large and poor immigrant family. I always try to find the most productive solutions in a conflict, which is often rarely the one that initially feels correct. If you has asked me yesterday if I ever experience genuine anger, I would have responded that "sure, on a regular basis from time to time, just like everybody else." Today, for the first time in many years, I've felt real anger. Not frustation, not being pissed off... really genuinely seething anger. It hit me as if it were some kind of potent narcotic, I began to sweat, my stomach began doing loops. I never lost my calm, and articulated myself clearly and consicely, and have no issues with how I conducted myself. I'm really amazed at how this feeling of rage has tailed me hours later. I'm glad I'm not more angry in my life. Frustrated? yes. Construtive disconent? Sometimes. Violent? Only in the most pro-social contexts. Anger is more powerful than I remember it. I want nothing to do with it. Frustration and disconent motivate me to enact change - anger just hurts us and comprimises our goals. Long story short: What're you experiences with profound anger? Have you ever experienced what you can call genuine anger? Have you ever lost control of your actions when angry (without the influences of an inerbriant)?
for the greater part of my childhood, i had always been an angry dude. i was angry because i was constantly disrespect by peers for little-to-no reason. i was the cliche case of the nerdy kid who always got shoved in lockers, spit on, beat on, etc., just because i was a nerd. i hardly ever let it out, so there where just as many moments when i'd be angry for no reason---and i paid a price for it. i made myself suffer mentally and physically. i was losing weight, alot. i began to have random panic attacks. i developed an obsession of thinking of all the people who'd wronged me and how i didn't deserve it; things like that took a big hit on my everyday life. but, i still never let it out. fast forward to about a two years ago; i began to realize that i was the center point of my own problems. one day i was just sitting in my room, thinking of everything i just mentioned above. all of sudden, my brain went silent and i quietly said to myself "i need to cut this shit out". i'll spare the details so your eyes don't hurt from reading this. but, i'm a lot more calm and collected than i was when i was growing up. every now and then, some anxiety will creep at random. but, i learn to just accept it, and keep on truckin'. i gotta realize that i can't win 'em all. i mean, i'm living, breathing, have just a few good friends. i'm enjoying some nice organic that i cop'd from a friend last week. i have all my fingers and all my toes. i can read, hear, see, etc---and somehow managed to keep my sanity with all the shit i had gone through since birth. i've already won.
In a way, I love anger. I don't like the rash decisions that I may or may not make while angry, but that adrenaline rush is super cray. Now that I think about it, I probably prefer the adrenaline rush over the anger bit. Perhaps I should become an adrenaline junkie.
Anger seems to be part of the breaking/rebuilding side of things. To make something new we often have to destroy what was there first. This kind of anger gets expressed in the moment and feels as if there are no consequences to it, that all that exists is it, and wants only to sustain itself, fuel itself, and will not easily let go. That last part reveals how egotistical it all is, and how fueling it by releasing it constantly only inflates it (the feeling of power one gets from it) and makes it easier to let out again. I've seen people fly into terrible rages over nothing, as they look to get their adrenaline fuelled fix wherever they can. Taken too far, and especially if it ends in violence, can be terribly destructive, and can result in breaking things that cannot be mended that didn't need breaking at all. We always have a choice, even if for some that moment is so fleeting as to be hardly there. But it is there, and we can see it and recognise it and not allow it to take hold. Dingus just posted somewhere else about what he needs to do when he recognises it rising. The fact that he can do this and take himself off which he knows will let it go, shows tremendous awareness of himself, and reveals that he is not running on ego, or at least recognises that it is not who he is or prefers to be. Each time this happens, and each time he deals with it this way, he takes one more step towards not having to experience it that way again. We have a choice.
It's very rare that I will experience a strong anger. I can think of no instance in my life where getting angry was a benefit to me. I call verbal fights accidents, as, try as I might, sometimes they happen. But when they do happen, I actually scare myself lol. I experience such an adrenaline rush that I fear my rage could cause me to do something that would get me locked up. And I don't want that.
Yeah. I'm probably missing your point here. I don't want to experience any set of emotions which are of no benefit me. Like anger, rage, sadness, etc.
But life throws up all kinds of things that cause all kinds of emotions. If you're saying you don't want to experience certain things, how will you come to understand what they mean?
I don't want to "come to understand what they mean," unless coming to understand what they mean can be of some benefit me. My goal in life is to maximize pleasure and minimize displeasure. Something that is of benefit to me is something that maximizes my pleasure. I need to be careful in how I word things here though. There are instances -- moments, and then there is the totality of my life -- the summation of all moments. I am currently trying to devise a systematic methodology which can tell me how to maximize the pleasure of the summation of all moments, which will in effect tell me how to approach a present moment. Right now it seems like I need to allow myself to have the capacity to experience negative emotions, even though I would prefer not to have negative emotions (they are a displeasure.) To illustrate: Let's say my mom dies. I would prefer not to cry, but would it be humanly possible not to cry if I valued my mom to the extent that I do (a lot)? Probably not, so allow myself instances in which I can experience negative emotions, as I find that valuing things can increase the pleasures in the summation of all moments (which is my ultimate goal), so in effect I must allow certain moments to be dis pleasurable.