Essays on Life
How Anger Kills
All day, everyday, most people react to each other with resentment or hate. This is done automatically, and often, unconsciously. It is so common, it is as nothing to most people. In most societies, anger is considered normal. Everybody does it. Still, most people don’t want to talk about it—much less think about it. The possibility of eliminating anger is not even considered. Yet, anger can be seen to be the root cause of depression, rape, racism, insanity, murder, and war.
When we expect more than we are getting, when our life is not living up to our dreams, things begin to look hopeless. When we do not appreciate what we have and can only dwell on what we don’t have, we begin to resent our situation or even our life. We start to turn our anger inward. We get angry at ourselves for not being smart enough or good enough to get what we want—what we expected. This resentment and the unwillingness to accept our situation is the beginning of depression. It is this increasingly common depression, coupled with a deep selfishness, that can lead to suicide.
Every time there is a murder, anger is involved. Resentments accumulate over time until some last intolerable slight sets someone off. Every murderer is a person that is temporarily or permanently consumed by hate. When people go into a rage, they lose their normal restraints. They lose their self control. If you could eliminate anger from the situation, most murders would not occur.
Studies have shown that rape is more about anger than it is about sex. Rape is a form of retribution. The rapist is trying to get even with those who were unjust to him. He is venting his anger in a way that will hurt and humiliate. The violence of the act is fueled by anger.
The racist or bigot has seen injustice or had injustice done to him. He needs someone to blame and the one who gets blamed is determined not by who deserves blame, but by who is a convenient target. One problem with anger is that its direction cannot be controlled. When the pressure builds to a sufficient degree, anger lashes out to the nearest person, even if that person is not the cause of the original resentment. The boss takes it out on the husband who takes it out on the wife who takes it out on the kids who end up kicking the cat. Those who cannot take it out on those close to them, end up finding another race, culture, or religion to blame for their problems.
When a person suppresses their anger for years at a time, they can implode mentally. They can get lost in endless loops of frustration and helplessness. Frustration is just another form of anger and unrelenting frustration is the beginning of mental imbalance. For such people, dreams become their only escape from the hostility around them and their own inner ugly rage. They retreat into their own mind-world which is seething with disgust and hatred. When taken as far as it can go, they can end up paranoid or schizophrenic or pathological. Most insanity comes from this kind of inner rage.
Anger is a reaction to perceived or imagined injustice. But it is an overreaction. Anger is not something you can control, it is something that controls you. It is not something that can be channeled into a positive direction. It is anger that murders innocence and it is anger that leaves suffering in its wake. Once you have seen for yourself that there is something wrong with anger, you can begin to learn how it works. For those who are willing to look into it, they may discover that there is a way out of this perpetual misery. If you suppress your anger, it will make you sick. Studies have shown that anger releases chemicals in the blood which can weaken the immune system. This can lead to cancer and other diseases. If you express your anger, it will make others sick. You will create an angry response in them which can damage their health. The only real and permanent solution to the never-ending problems of this world, is the actual elimination of anger—the anger in you.
Copyright, 1993
Michael Roybal
Copyright 2005, Inkless Press
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