Truth Bomb Tuesday: We’re so scared of it, but it’s so important.
Imagine you are creating some sort of AI robot, and you want it to replicate the human experience as much as possible.
Would you give that robot the capacity to feel anger?
I’m guessing that most people would say “No, of course not.”
I mean, partly that’s because we’re all really scared of where the whole AI robotics thing is going. We definitely don’t want to program anger into that system. We’re already doing our best to not make it angry.
“Oh yeah, no, that painting is totally realistic. You’re doing a fantastic job with rendering those hands. Well done.”
But it’s more because we generally think that anger serves no productive purpose.
Anger is typically seen as nothing more than a sign that a human being has lost control of itself.
And so we create very little space in our world for anger to come through.
Even as toddlers anger always prompts a parental intervention.
And then as adults there’s even less space. Anger is an emotion that is to be suppressed or avoided at all costs.
But this creates all kinds of problems.
I mean obviously if we’re bottling up all that anger, we are going to get all tangled up inside. It becomes dense and heavy and weighs us down.
But not only that it disconnects us from one of the most powerful sources of drive and motivation that we have.
Anger is the energy we use to champion our needs. It is the energy that says, “No, this is not okay with me.” And it’s the energy that says, “Yes, I deserve this. I’m going to go out and get it.”
Without that energy our efforts to create a beautiful life for ourselves can become half-hearted. We accept more shitty things than we should. We pull up too short on calling in all the things we desire.
Anger, in its right place and properly channelled, can be the cornerstone of creating an amazing life.
When we deny our birthright to anger, we deny our birthright life we were meant to live.
But it’s worse than that.
Because the river of anger has its source in the wellspring of desire.
(Ohh. Look at me getting all poetic. Anyone who says I’m not allowed to get poetic is going to cop a whack from my anger-management whiffle bat.)
Because we simply don’t feel angry unless something that we cherish is at stake.
Sometimes that might be a thing. If someone yells at your child or dings your car, you’ll get angry at them.
But it might also be a sense of an ideal you want the world to uphold. When you see injustice and cruelty, even to people you’ve never met, it’s natural to get angry.
But the thing to note here is that anger gives us immediate access to our desires.
It’s one of the best ways to know what you value and what you desire.
And the really interesting thing that I’ve noticed, is that the people who have disallowed anger in themselves the most, are also the ones who have the hardest time figuring out what they want.
The river freezes up. It’s as if once anger is forbidden, then desire is forbidden too.
And so the way I see it, we need to create space for anger. We need to find ways to channel it in a healthy and safe way.
Because if we can do that, it gives greater access to our desires, and greater access to a powerhouse of energy.
Why wouldn’t we want that?
And maybe that’s the next question. Who taught us to be afraid of our anger? And why?
DB.