A Look at ANGER

Anger is about us and our state of mind. It is an emotion we show to others that can destroy our good image and damage relationships. It is a reaction coming from within us as a result of some displeasure over something we take as negative. We express it in many forms like shouting at the top of our voice, displaying unruly finger signs, staring and other offending postures to show aggression.

Animals show their anger when trying to secure mating privileges, this is most common. And of course, to protect their territorial boundaries, animals may even fight to the death. Humans do this too whenever someone encroaches their territory. This is protectionism, an innate trait of all humans. The Israeli-Palestinian war has stemmed out of territorial boundaries. Both sides are forever quarreling out of anger for one another.

I believe that Anger is part of the evolution process, being that functional part of us to continue with survival as a species. Today we have all kinds of threats from many quarters of the globe. If global warming makes mankind angry with their own species, the deprived poor can be notably angry with the rich around them when wealth is not seen to be equitably shared.

Anger is a driver of many things we do everyday, sometimes we are stressed by anger itself for no apparent reason. Rightly too we sometimes describe anger as stress. This seems to be the more meaningful word if anger sounds inappropriate.

It is when we are angry or always angry that we are most vulnerable to the elements from within our own system. What we get and experience are discomfort, pain and injury. We may grief and withdraw ourselves, even resorting to drugs, alcohol, tobacco smoking and other forms of pain killers which will give us temporary relief but not a cure.

The cure ironically is found in the brain, we commonly described it as our mind, our engine of thoughts. The body is just a vehicle, the fuel for our cells to function efficiently is in the hypothalamus where the “pineal” and the “pituitary” glands secrete hormones and act as masters to all other body systems we have.