Getting angry...

I blogged not too long ago about anger being stupid.  I was wrong.  Anger, unlike cockroaches, serves a valuable purpose.  This occurred to me yesterday while driving through a bright and beautiful morning.  You know how when you were a kid and were in the checkout line with your mom and you asked her for a candybar and she said no?  You threw a tantrum.  You were angry.  The trick of anger is to notice that you are not angry at your mom.  You are not even angry that you don't get to eat the candybar.  You are angry at the fact that you don't have a choice in the matter.

My husband is about to leave on tour for a very long time.  The longest time he's been away in the past four years.  To top it off, during this very long time, he will be sharing extremely close living quarters with a girl- a talented, cute one, nonetheless.  Neither of these facts makes me happy in the least.  In the past when such things have occurred, I have gotten angry- at my husband, at his boss, at life.  The anger then turned into sadness.  And, finally it became resignment to the fact that there was nothing I could do about it.

However, yesterday when the topic came up in discussion, I realized that yes, I was very angry, but no, my anger had no direction.  This time I was angry at no one and no thing.  I am not angry at my husband because his job is part of him and I cannot be angry at any one part of him, because then I wouldn't love the real him.  I can't be angry at his boss because he is giving my husband work, and I am thankful, not only for the money, but also for the opportunity for my husband to do what he loves.  I am not angry at life because life has given me a husband who not only loves me, but loves what he does.  There are so few people these days who can say that.  So, right there on I-295 I felt clean anger for the first time.  There was nothing to blame, no one to stand accused.  And it felt good.  It felt good because it suddenly brought to light the purpose of anger.

Anger's purpose is to give us a sense of control in a situation where we have none.  For most, anger is a type of self-delusion.  For instance, you may not be able to do anything about the cost of healthcare, but you can be angry about it and find someone to blame for it.  It's interesting because in blaming someone else, it would seem that you are giving them power over you.  You are admitting that that one person, whom you've probably never met, has the power to make you do something you don't want to do (in this case, pay high prices for shitty healthcare).  But, it is in the act of being angry at that person that you delude yourself into believing that you are actively doing something about it, thereby gaining control over the situation.  But the truth is- when you are angry at someone, you are never in control.  The anger is.

But yesterday I realized that feeling clean anger that is directed at no one is true power.  Not self-delusion.  Because I was taking responsibility for my own anger.  I wasn't blaming it on someone else.  I wasn't taking my lot in life and laying it on some random party whom I had connected to my plight via my mind's desperate attempts at rationalization.  I was angry- period.  For whatever reason, just being angry was enough.  And, it passed just as quickly as it had come.  I read in neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor's book, My Stroke of Insight, that the brain only holds on to its anger stimulus for something like 15 seconds.  If you remain angry after that, then it is of your own conscious choice.

I worry about the way people live their lives today.  It seems they are always looking for someone to blame for anything and everything.  The number of lawsuits alone points to this delusion.  It seems to me that for most situations there is no one to blame.  And besides, we don't look for someone to blame every time something good happens in our lives.  If I win the lottery, I'm just gonna be thankful.  I'm not going to "blame" the cashier and give him part of my earnings.  For all that is good, our tendency is to credit either ourselves or God.  For all that is bad, our tendency is to blame another person.  Why can't what happens just happen?  Good or bad.  Being angry at someone does not change the situation.  What it does change is you.