Emotions

Experience

This week I noticed the following experiences.

• A subtle mood of irritability, and under that, frustration, in which I restrained impulses to "lash out" toward others about trivial behaviors.  I'd "like" to be more relaxed / loving at this time.  It didn't work just to "drop it" or try to adopt an attitude (although it did help to "remember" experiences outside this pattern).  I noticed things change, though, as I (a) redirected conversation to topics we both enjoyed, (b) caught up on my sleep so I felt rested and relaxed, (c) took time to make my living space more orderly and aesthetic, and (d) completed a couple of "procrastinated" projects. 
• A set of familiar "themes" related to my values and character, desires and aspirations, skills and and capacities (and their deficits, of course).   I have certain way(s) of "being in the world".  I use (employ. feel comfortable with, and enjoy) knowledge for its practical uses in pursuing positive "values" I "believe in", need, or desire... and notice myself defending this -- getting "effortful",  tense or even subtly aggressive -- in social activities where this way of being in the world is not supported.  (As an example of this, see the paragraph below starting with "I resist easy formulas..."). 
• Anger mixed with fear, grief, apathy about broad trends in the world such as environment and social justice.  At the same time I sense the contrasting "positive" desires and emotions related to these same issues.

I resist easy formulas and simplifying definitions, especially regarding something as complex as human emotion in its full context.  As a general orientation, I like to consider that:

For every reasonable generalization, there's also (1) a contrary or opposite that's also true; (2) a set of conditions needed to maintain it; and (3) another set of conditions working to refute it.

Although that sounds abstract and intellectual, it has emotional underpinnings defining my relationship to it and style of thinking.  When I feel oppressed by and resist what I interpret as fundamentalism and dogmatism (in any field) it leads to subtle conflict.  Generally, I believe people use ideas in an attempt to structure themselves and their social world; what I hope is to able to see their positive motivations and work toward some constructive collective relationship. 

Beliefs about Anger and Emotions

• It is useful to study / understand phenomena like anger and human emotions in a broad context and to understand the origin and nature of different theories about them.
• The nature of anger depends on personal factors such as individual biology, character, skills, habits, and "consciousness."
• Emotions in general and anger / aggression in particular are social phenomena, both in theory, and in their actual way of "coming into the world in the moment."
• The meaning and nature of anger depends on its place, use, and appropriateness.
• It's helpful to study anger and other emotions within a more balanced framework of "positive social psychology" rather than its status as something that is (a) invidual and "internal", and (b) pathologized.
• Anger is a useful, adaptive mechanism that has helped organisms evolve, adapt, and thrive.  It is a mode of functioning of human emotions, which are threaded though and inseparable form human consciousness and behavior.
• Anger participates in many problematical patterns and pathologies, but does not "cause" it. 
• Anger is not a problem to be "solved."
• There are differences between "anger", "aggression" and "assertiveness" that are important to think about. 
• Dramatizing (acting out) anger in stereotypical ways may or may not have constructive results for individuals or their groups.  I don't subscribe to simplistic formulas that say anger is something that's good to "express" for therapeutic reasons.
• Anger and other emotions provide energies that can be used in positive ways.

Anger and It's "Opposites" (Benevolence, Compassion, Forgiveness)

When dealing with anger, conflict, and aggression in its many forms, whether as a friend, a member of a group, a citizen, or a parent, I believe it's possible to "hold" the anger in a larger, positive context of compassion, cooperation, and love (or unconditional positive regard as it's been called).

As a personal observation, I've noticed that when things get tense in a group, when there are conflicts, it's often because people are trying to influence the group to do things in certain ways.  Some familiar (and shortsighted) interpretations construe this in negative terms as "a struggle for power" or "an ego thing" or an attempt to save face,  "avoid pain", or displace aggression onto others.  Other interpretations see a humans in a more positive and intelligent light.  For all the negative interpretations, I think the following are generally also true:

• People are doing the best they can, given that they don't have a god-like understanding of the world and other humans.
• They are jockeying (negotiating) to arrange for the group to do things in the way that makes the best sense to them, with positive intent.
• They are trying to arrange things so that their positive "gifts" and abilities can most easily be used.

I recently saw the movie "The King's Speech".  In this true story, the Duke of York is called to take on the role of the King when his older brother abdicates.  The difficulty is, he has a speech impediment -- a stutter -- that makes him incapable of public speaking (and consequently of taking on the role of leading his country).  This takes place at the brink of World War II.  The King forms a relationship with a resourceful speech therapist who creates a therapeutic relationship with him, mentors him, and helps him change his speech patterns, which are in part psychological in origin, in order to find his "voice" and his identity as someone capable of leading his country.  A "voice" is a difficult thing to change however, and his need to take on the role of King and lead his country during wartime is a great motivator.  Without this social need -- something bigger than the man -- he would not have succeeded. 

In a telling scene, he is watching a newsreel of Adolf Hitler speaking to a huge crowd, shouting and gesticulating.  His young daughter Margaret asks him what Hitler is saying.  The King replies:  "I don't know what he's saying, darling -- but he's saying it very well."  I liked this insight because the King is going beyond seeing Hitler categorically, as an enemy of the state  (to this day, Hitler is an iconic "monster" of anger and evil) to draw from him a part of the energy he himself needed to succeed as King.  In the following scene when he is delivering his speech, his mentor is right next to him with an encouraging and benevolent expression, and fluidly, when necessary, a fierce one.  The film shows the people of his nation listening to his address -- he is announcing the declaration of war and the coming sacrifices that will be required -- and taking courage from him. 

This quality of benevolence plus fierceness -- in which anger coexists with and is guided by love -- has been called "heart anger" and has been called an archetypal quality of leadership and kingship.  Martin Luther King had this quality in his speech. 

Science and Philosophy of Emotions

I have collected a few notes on the topic of emotions from a perspective of science, philosophy, and spirituality.  I find this background very helpful for understanding -- or at least considering possibilties -- of the nature of anger and other emotions and their role in human behavior.