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Is Anger A Worthwhile Emotion?
By Chrissy Stockton
I’ve never really understood anger, it’s not something I experience often. I’ll get aggressive or competitive, but it’s more like a kid playing dress up, it’s experimental rather than earnest. Most of the time when I’m feeling anger or I’m dealing with people who are angry it feels like a joke to me. Feigning or hyperbolizing anger is a way I make myself laugh when I have a headache or I’m in a stressful situation, but it’s not real. It seems silly to get so upset about something when getting upset is so counterproductive to whatever it is that will get you un-upset.
My biggest problem with anger is that it gets in the way of discussing political and cultural issues, or solving relationship problems. There are so many topics that are intellectually interesting and worthy of conversation but you can’t talk about them because people’s instantaneous backlash is “of course we know what the answer to this is, how dare you even ask?” But, it’s always good to question accepted norms, and simply entertaining a thought says nothing about whether or not you even accept it.
There’s a Thomas Merton quote I love, and think about whenever I find myself getting upset about something:“The arguments of religious men are so often insecure, and their insecurity is proportionate to their anger. Why do we get angry about what we believe…
