continuing the theme of anger

Anger finds its way into our lives in the oddest manners. (With the oddest manners in fact, people who say please and thank you, sometimes have the meanest, angriest edge to their politeness...) As I continue to study anger, I see where anger makes some people "love" or more what happens is that the person retreats to some level of insecurity to compensate for the anger. If it isn't okay to be angry -say at a situation- or at a person then one's anger must find another route...in a handful of cases, I've seen, that anger finds its way out in self-image. We make a quiet internal --I suspect subconscious-- statement to ourselves that since this thing that we are angry about didn't work out the way we wanted/asked/suspected (shoresh for those who get the reference: mem-tzadi-yud) it to, that there is something not to like or to be upset over within ourselves. I believe that this negative energy turns inwards to us and we let it eat away at our own self-esteem and it creates insecurities.

When we are insecure, we seek all manner of things to appease our fears. common means of fixing our fears: we try to look good, dress better, in such a way that we feel better about ourselves, we seek relationships which pad our sense of how likable we are, we throw ourselves into our work and use our work as a means to shore up our fears about ourselves. At least, we think, if I am productive, or I am hard-working, or I accomplish X, than I am worth something. There is a famous desiderata about our deserving to be on this earth just as much as the trees, fishes, birds, etc. I think about it from time to time and recall how comforting it has been to countless folk. Why? Because so many of us, if not all of us, need some reassurance about our deserving our spot in the world. Sometimes we ask ourselves ... Are we worth our weight in salt? in gold?

What kind of question is that?

Anger finds its way into so much of what we do and who we are. We don't even have to be aware of where the anger is from, but its insidious presence comes sneaking into our lives nonetheless. If we rein in the desire to express our anger, it comes out another way. If we allow it to expel in non-productive ways we can cause grief and bitterness as I briefly mentioned in a prior post beginning with the Kipling quote from Michael. It is beyond all things possible that we should never experience anger, but perhaps "GI Joe" was right in saying that "knowing is half the battle." It is well worth it to us, if we are able to feel, step back, assess, and then act. This does, I believe, include unpacking all the pipeces of where anger is and what it does.