Angry about something? Anything? Maybe not something personal, possibly something more far reaching, say a political matter or a religious one? But think. Regardless of whether or not the supposed cause of anger is proximal or distal, what is really taking place “in” you? Is some general anger driving you? Or, do you have something specific “in mind”? There’s a personal geography in this.
Generally, you might think the world is an angry place and that you are living in the angriest of times. Both history and myth seem to suggest otherwise. For indefinite numbers of reasons behavior driven by anger has been a persistent human condition. It’s as though the story of Cain is everyone’s story—not the killing, but some manifestation of anger in varying degrees, occurring not only through time but also in every place. Don’t want anger to control you? Concerned that you might be a little too miffed on occasion?
We all live on multiple levels. There’s a level on which we operate within a closed system of Self, another level on which we interact with close associates and occasional strangers, and a third level on which we might have no immediate connection yet feel drawn into conditions far outside the Self. That last level is one that drives us to attach ourselves to causes or movements of like-minded anger. The movement can be an amorphous, very loosely structured one, such as Occupy Wall Street. Participants of OWS, when asked why they were doing what they were doing didn’t offer much specificity to reporters questioning them. The participants seemed angry about a variety of economic circumstances, all of which they tied to an entity called “Wall Street.” When the cause of anger is distal, we find a scapegoat to make it proximal. When it is proximal, we have identified an object-person.
Here’s a method for lessening anger on any level. Think place. That is, as anger begins to well up from the brain’s interior, try to analyze its place on one of your levels of existence. “Wait, am I in my proximal anger? Am I in my distal anger?”
Maybe you find this too cognitive an approach to work, but think about what it does. When we “place” anger—find our distance to its cause—we give pause to our emotion. We take anger out of the brain’s interior, and in doing so, we see our relationship to whatever drives our anger. Think of anger as a connection of varying lengths and strengths.
Imagine anger as some kind of elastic connection, a rubber band of emotion. In most instances of proximal anger, the rubber band closely retains its thick, relatively upstretched shape. It’s tough and unweakened. The band of distal anger is stretched, losing, depending upon how much stretching it undergoes, its thicker shape. Or think of proximal anger as a thick, but amorphous dark cloud of smoke that envelopes your immediate world and distal anger as also amorphous, but thinned out and blown by winds beyond your personal control. An angry mob carries your distal smoke with it. Want one more image? Proximal causes of anger are immediate drenching cloudbursts; distal causes of anger are approaching squall lines that from afar appear threatening but that do not necessarily ensure drenching where you stand.
Picturing anger’s connector and distance to object-person is a key to its control. The next time you get angry, be aware of the geography of your personal anger. The awareness itself will impose self-control. You can think, “Here I am; there is the nearby—or distant—cause,” or “I see how I am connected (near or far).”
Generally, you might think the world is an angry place and that you are living in the angriest of times. Both history and myth seem to suggest otherwise. For indefinite numbers of reasons behavior driven by anger has been a persistent human condition. It’s as though the story of Cain is everyone’s story—not the killing, but some manifestation of anger in varying degrees, occurring not only through time but also in every place. Don’t want anger to control you? Concerned that you might be a little too miffed on occasion?
We all live on multiple levels. There’s a level on which we operate within a closed system of Self, another level on which we interact with close associates and occasional strangers, and a third level on which we might have no immediate connection yet feel drawn into conditions far outside the Self. That last level is one that drives us to attach ourselves to causes or movements of like-minded anger. The movement can be an amorphous, very loosely structured one, such as Occupy Wall Street. Participants of OWS, when asked why they were doing what they were doing didn’t offer much specificity to reporters questioning them. The participants seemed angry about a variety of economic circumstances, all of which they tied to an entity called “Wall Street.” When the cause of anger is distal, we find a scapegoat to make it proximal. When it is proximal, we have identified an object-person.
Here’s a method for lessening anger on any level. Think place. That is, as anger begins to well up from the brain’s interior, try to analyze its place on one of your levels of existence. “Wait, am I in my proximal anger? Am I in my distal anger?”
Maybe you find this too cognitive an approach to work, but think about what it does. When we “place” anger—find our distance to its cause—we give pause to our emotion. We take anger out of the brain’s interior, and in doing so, we see our relationship to whatever drives our anger. Think of anger as a connection of varying lengths and strengths.
Imagine anger as some kind of elastic connection, a rubber band of emotion. In most instances of proximal anger, the rubber band closely retains its thick, relatively upstretched shape. It’s tough and unweakened. The band of distal anger is stretched, losing, depending upon how much stretching it undergoes, its thicker shape. Or think of proximal anger as a thick, but amorphous dark cloud of smoke that envelopes your immediate world and distal anger as also amorphous, but thinned out and blown by winds beyond your personal control. An angry mob carries your distal smoke with it. Want one more image? Proximal causes of anger are immediate drenching cloudbursts; distal causes of anger are approaching squall lines that from afar appear threatening but that do not necessarily ensure drenching where you stand.
Picturing anger’s connector and distance to object-person is a key to its control. The next time you get angry, be aware of the geography of your personal anger. The awareness itself will impose self-control. You can think, “Here I am; there is the nearby—or distant—cause,” or “I see how I am connected (near or far).”
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