still philosophising endlessly, don't mind me

Today's subject is still anger. Anger provides temporary relief. Somebody hurting you? Don't get sad, get mad! If you're angry, you're energetic and you can go do something like hate them or get revenge. It's really easy to get mad. Just look only at somebody's flaws, turn off empathy and assign them the worst possible motives. The more you love somebody, the easier this is, because you've got a lot of experience with the flaws of people you love. It's rewarding and easy to turn love into hate. Everything is the other person's fault. And you can burn with a justified and bitter rage.

This, however, is akin to visitting a loan shark. Lots of funds now, lots of debt later. Hate almost always hurts the hater more than the hatee (excluding acts of violence. silent hate is more self-destructive). Hate burns a hole in you. And hate doesn't hurt the other person, usually. I mean, you can do things to hurt them, but they might fail to work and then, either way, you feel guilty or enraged or some other taxing emotion.

anger causes explosions. Get mad! Get wound up tighter than a spring! freak out at small provocations or for no reasons at all! yell at your cat! Mad! Mad! Mad! BOOM!!

Of course, maybe you do succeed in hurting the other person. then s/he gets mad too and extracts revenge in return! and then you extract revenge! and the s/he does! and then you! ohhh all this righteous rage is enough to burn down a house, or a temple . . . some people think their body is a temple. somepeople would gladly burn their bodies to the ground. Anger could be addictive, you need more and more to keep hurt at bay. And when you're wound up so tight, how do you stop?

Man, I dunno. Take a deep breath. As Jean says, if you're not breathing, you're not doing your best thinking. Then think of something good about your nemesis. Everyone has something good about them. If this person was all bad, they wouldn't have been able to attract your attention long enough to get you mad. This strategy may not work for elected officials, but it's got to work for people you love. Yeah s/he's got more flaws and misdeeds than you can shake a stick at. And her/his nose was always just a little bit pointy in an unasthetic way. And s/he did yell at you and say something maybe s/he regretted later. But abstractly, without hurt, there would be no hope. Concretely, there is something that made you love this person. And that something is still there. S/he still has a contagious laugh. there was that time s/he bought you ice cream when you were having a bad day. there's all the love you shared and that still counts for something. Breathe. find love. find a stable platform. then figure out what to do. imho.