What purpose anger?

[frotz]

I've been thinking about anger a bunch lately, mostly triggered by knowing lots of people who spend a great deal of time angry at or about something-or-other.

I often get fleetingly irritated at something (and quite highly irritated at that, especially when reading about political stuff), but it never really sticks with me beyond perhaps a background sense of dissatisfaction about something. It's not that I don't do something about it, but I don't seethe.

The people who are always pissed off seem to get a lot of energy from it that spurs them to do things. (Sometimes great, sometimes at least constructive, sometimes destructive, sometimes channeled into other things completely. ("I cannot vote in this election. Therefore I will knit a sweater.")) It also often seems to leave them unhappy, stressed, sleepless, and in ill health.

Dunno where to go with that. To counter the oft-seen button, I think I'm paying attention, but I'm not usually outraged. Should I be?

(PS: sorry, I meant to start my dreamwidth wotsit with something light and fluffy, but this is what's on my mind. Here, have some lolcats.)

Comments

[rmd]

I am occasionally motivated by anger. Sometimes it's "the state of my house is pissing me off. I will clean." Sometimes it's "God damned politics these people are destroying the ideals I hold dear. I will write an angry letter."

When I get angry about things that I feel particularly powerless to change ("the political discourse in my country", for example), I need to let it go or it ends up fucking me up more than I'd like. Sometimes I have to make an explicit and intentional effort to avoid media that looks at things through the outrage filter.

I do think my ability to let this stuff go is correlated with my general level of comfort and well-being. I have a roof over my head and food on the table *and* in the pantry, and am in a healthy committed relationship.

Often, my response to things that annoy and anger me is strongly skewed by my general internal state. For example, I've been pretty cheesed off by my work situation lately, which tends to make me more sensitive to things being wrong.

[frotz]

Yeah, having the privilege of living a reasonably well-arranged and comfortable life is a big help in the serenity department. I don't have a lot of media in my life, and I'm sure that helps too, since I don't think I've seen much media that doesn't look at things through the outrage filter.

With regard to work: embrace your inner duck! (Easier said that done; I've spent a lot of time over the last year being bothered by work, too, but I think I've recently found my own inner duck in that department. Quack!)

[ex_bel786]

I can definitely become angry enough to seethe, but instead of giving me energy it tends to deplete my energy, and even make me sick if it continues. So I try to find some way to defuse it or let it go before it gets to that. Sometimes that's difficult, and can ultimately only be done by removing myself from the source (for a while or permanently), if it's a person or a job.

I don't tend to get as angry about political stuff, but that's probably because it doesn't affect me personally as much. Which probably points to my various positions of privilege and lack of general empathy.

[frotz]

I find that political stuff, or at least the actions of government (which I'd like to think can be influenced at least indirectly by political stuff), is becoming more and more irrational and affecting me directly and annoyingly more and more. When I do get actively pissed, however briefly, it's a tossup on any given day between whether it's about stupid government stuff or stupid cultural stuff, arguably two facets of the same lump of grot.

Of course, I also get mail from n different advocacy groups that says, approximately, "Look at these horrible things that are happening! Aren't they horrible? Horrible. Be outraged! Now send us money." Lots of money in outrage.

[bedfull_o_books]

I get a bunch of those email messages too. I don't even bother opening them any more. I am too tired....