Weltanschauung

The Philosopher’s Stone

zenothestoic@protonmail.ch

Tag: Anger

  • Anger

    Anger

    It is very disappointing to have given in to anger, which in retrospect could easily have been averted by withdrawing from the scene and allowing it to be dealt with by professionals hired for the purpose. Or the police

    After such progress in taming unwanted emotions and achieving a most satisfying equanimity, something (or rather somebody) slipped through a chink in my armor and I landed flat on my back.

    There is no defense – there is no excuse for allowing temper to get the better of me and I very much hope that it will not happen again. Must try harder.

    Unfortunately, a friend of mine was threatened by an unpleasant bully with whom she has had considerable trouble for a number of years. I went to her assistance as the bully threatened to “get her out” of her home and told her that she and all her family were mentally ill.

    The bully is an ill educated and illiterate fat thug who has upset many, many people over the decades with his inflated ego and determination to win at all costs, however petty the dispute.

    He bullied and threatened the office girls at a credit card company who would not bend to his wishes. Or rather could not give in to his unreasonable demands. He asked them “Do you know who I am?” Despite the fact he is a small man, he has a greatly inflated sense of his own value.

    Tradespeople learn not to deal with him on account of his arrogance and rudeness. He refuses to pay in full for goods and services he has ordered and consumed – he makes spurious claims that they were defective in some way and thus cheats tradespeople out of their dues.

    He appears to have no understanding of the rule of law and it is difficult to tell whether it is just his dullard’s wits and ignorance which are at fault, or whether he deliberately chooses not to understand, so as to win another of his innumerable petty swindles.

    If this fellow can do someone down who is standing in his way, he goes for it. As with all bullies, when confronted he is eventually forced to back down but only at the cost of much unpleasantness.

    In any event, mea culpa. I am deeply saddened to have been caught so badly off guard and next time will suggest getting the due agents of law enforcement involved.

    The correct course of action is to call for help from people whose job it is to deal with such matters and who do not get emotionally involved, since they have no personal knowledge of or attachment to the parties.

  • Anger is Self-Harm

    Anger is Self-Harm

    The anger I felt after a set-to a week ago was a futile exercise in self harm.

    I had a problem with two people. One I shall call Psycho and for her I feel deep pity and sadness. The other I shall call the Buffoon and for him I feel (I am sorry to say) contempt.

    I should have known better than to answer Psycho’s call. I have been trying to help for many years but she knows the lot and is incapable of listening or being wrong. Every time I have had contact in recent years, the poor thing has lit some touch paper inside me and left me feeling angry, guilty, irritable and sad in equal parts for many days after.

    Unfortunately when crossed, Psycho likes to let the world know and will make trouble on an epic scale. Countless parties will be copied in on trouble making emails, cc’d to friends, family, lawyers, the Archbishop of Ulam Bator  and Uncle Tom Cobbley.  The object seems to be to cause massive buggeration all round.

    Tittle tattle, gossip and venom are poured out in equal measure and the Buffoon (one of the lucky recipients) saw an opportunity to join battle, sending his own batch of vitriolic nonsense to various of the parties.  You would feel pity also for the Buffoon if he were not a self important, ill educated and stupid windbag intent on nothing but his own aggrandizement and self interest.

    But look who is working himself up…which brings me back to the point. At last.  Whether I am on the moral high ground or, more probably, not, I am self harming by allowing anger to surface. For me anger is rather like agent orange; or dogshit on the bottom of my shoes. I just can’t scrape it off. It festers, smells and builds for days until my blood pressure rises, and another trip to the doctor is called for.

    I am sure that if you are a saintly cove like the dear old Dalai Wotsit, you don’t get angry in the first place. Years of sitting cross legged and saying “Ommmm” must have made him immune to vulgar, common or garden anger. And what of the self help Gurus like Choppy Deepak and Eggsplurt Tolla? Such great men claim to live in the now and are presumably immune to the Seven Deadly Sins.

    Sadly I am a lowly mortal and when I get pissed off I really do have a massive Bad Hair day. Well quite a few Bad Hair days really.  I am impossibly irritable and bad tempered, I drive dangerously, I do not sleep at night. My irritation with Psycho and the arselicking Buffoon courses through my veins.

    But guess what? It can all be avoided by the simple tactic of avoiding poor old Pyscho and the absurd Buffoon. Don’t read their emails, don’t pick up the phone. Baton down all hatches, close the blackout curtains.  Recognize that wherever the fault lies, all parties are suffering and no purpose is being served.

    I guess it isn’t always possible to cut people out of your life. Or there again, perhaps it is, with a bit of effort. Providing you don’t lose your rag you could change jobs, wives, husbands, countries, town or villages. Sexes even. Flee.  It would be a bit presumptuous to expect them to flee but as long as one party does, your purpose is served.

    I wish I were not so easily riled. I wish I were not such a bad tempered old fucker but there you go, I am.

    The serious point is that anger helps nobody and does immeasurable harm. Lives can be ruined, lost even. My own solution going forward will be to avoid danger, if at all possible. Make sure my paths do not cross with those who trigger my wrath. It’s the only way.

    Because Dalai Wotsit I am most definitely not!

  • Corrosive, Obsessive Hatred

    Corrosive, Obsessive Hatred

    How can people not see what their untrammelled hatred does to themselves and those around them? How can they give into it day after day so that it obscures both their very reason and destroys their lives?

    I must forget my obsession with the science and philosophy of determinism and free will, and assume for the moment that we are indeed able to choose our behaviour if we wish and if we can see any necessity for so doing.

    I must also admit I may not be in the ideal position to talk about such matters, since I have no reason to feel hatred and I don’t think I ever have.  At least for more than a few fleeting moments.

    I am what the Americans would call a “WASP” – a white anglo saxon protestant. The Brits would classify me as a typical upper middle class Londoner, well enough off and lucky enough in the genetic lottery of birth.

    So I may not be ideally qualified to understand corrosive, obsessive hatred.  I have never suffered torture or political oppression, never had my extremities removed by the steel arms of a vicious and backward desert theocracy.  Isis has never reached my pleasant ivory tower and Idi Amin has never eaten my relatives.

    But in my own, generally calm and privileged environment, I have nonetheless seen what damage hatred can cause. And indeed money is no cure for despair or misery – as we have seen in the unhappy recent history of our Royal Family.

    There is a particular woman I know who has gone overboard in recent years; she has destroyed her life and her family by hatred and yet as is so often the way, she insists it is others who have wronged her and will accept none of the blame. Nor will she change or even see the need to change.

    For her own sake if only she would heed the words so often spoken to her in kindness by all and sundry including counsellors, family and paid advisors she could transform a very hell into a veritable heaven.

    She is the maker of her own prison, she has built the very walls which have trapped and enslaved her.  She is the wife of an exceptionally wealthy banker; they live in luxury in London and in thousands of rolling acres in the countryside.  Their children have been well educated at the finest public schools and the family is surrounded by staff and lackeys to cater to their every whim.  No doubt like prince Charles, they could, if they so chose, have a maid put toothpaste on their toothbrushes and another maid run their bath.

    The husband has unfortunately never been faithful and many are his “conquests”. Filipino maids, girlfriends in every port, county wives of the great and the good in their beautiful English shire.  It’s all rather Edwardian really. Or I think the french still live like that, don’t they? A pampered wife wanting for no material comfort and a philandering husband who plunders and swashbuckles as he chooses.

    Well women have a choice. Many choose to let their husband out on a long rein.  It appears that marriages can work in that way.  Edward VII’s Mrs Keppel and a stream of others were tolerated by a long suffering Princess Alexandra of Denmark.

    If you refuse to tolerate such misbehaviour or you can not, then separate.  Live your own life, start again, take up a career or a new one, re-marry, have some fun, travel.

    Few are lucky enough to have your resources!

    But please, do not chose the route of hatred and bitterness. Do not drive your own children away from you by your temper and your anger. Do not split your family and blame your siblings. Accept help, go to counseling but listen to what your counselors tell you. Do not throw their well meant help back at them. Do not assume everyone around you means you harm and ill. That everyone is threatening you and trying to swindle you.

    There comes a time when however close you once were, your friends and family have to back away for their own health, happiness and sanity.  They can not enter a reality they know is yours and of your making. A solipsistic nightmare.

  • Anger – an Evolutionary Curse

    Anger – an Evolutionary Curse

    Anger is an invention of the selfish gene, an evolutionary tool for the survival of the fittest.  Strength, fitness and anger – what better to equip the human genome to survive and prosper in the hideous brutality of nature.

    Anger is an emotion, a subjective experience, a “quale” and something which any student of consciousness must by definition take an interest in.

    I have noticed increasing anger and bitterness in myself over the past few years; it has become very noticeably expressed in my writing. But better “expressed” than “repressed”.

    While it sometimes seems to me that my anger has external causes at a deeper level I know that it does not. I have no reason to be angry or bitter. Born into a prosperous, upper middle class British family and expensively educated by famous names I was given everything a child could expect.

    And my inglorious career began at one of the City of London’s best known institutions and was continued at one of Basel’s.

    And yet there was always anger. I like to think the anger was not and is not my fault and yet I know I must not shirk all responsibility.

    As heart it’s mostly about nature and nurture but you certainly have some freedom to alter your own behaviour (unless you believe in strict determinism, which of course is not without its adherents).

    Why does this post belong in “Science”? Because I am devoting much of my time to studying consciousness and have come to believe that humanity can and will be saved from brutality and misery by science and science alone. I want to be a part of that scientific endeavour, even if at a philosophical level only.

    I know that anger and bitterness should be controlled; it is destructive and pointless in the modern age. It belongs to animals and cavemen.

    If I could choose not to be angry I would.  And I believe one day that choice will be possible and easily achieved. In the meantime it requires steely self control and awareness and even then can only be partly contained in some of us.