Making Faces

[pasithea]

Yesterday, a friend told me that I seemed angry a lot. :/ I don't feel like an angry person. Certain things will make me go off, but I get over them quickly. But just the same, she's right. The face I show the world tends to be angry a lot of the time. Well. Online. In person, I suppose I'm a lot more light and carefree.

It's funny. Who we are versus who we present: I see wonder and beauty all around me all the time, why don't I share that instead of rage? I'm guessing it's insecurity. Anger is a safe emotion. If I say, "This is beautiful, I love this!", I'm not just sharing something beautiful with the world, I'm opening myself to someone saying, "It's ugly", "That was made by sweatshop labor.", or "How can you talk about something so inane when there's so much awful in the world."

It's also tied up in what I was taught as 'humility'. I do lots of good stuff. I've let people stay with me for months without any requirement of payment so they could get back on their feet. Helped friends pay rent when they were stuck. Helped people move. Taken people on vacations. Etc. I rarely talk about those things.

Mostly, I don't want whoever I'm helping to feel as if they owe me anything. If I mention a deed, they might have to publicly say 'Thank you' and I feel like that's forced humility. Second, I fear that if I help one person and another person hears about it, then when they need help and I can't or won't help them, they think that I dislike them or that they're bad or something.

Then, there's my own feelings. If I talk about good deeds, I feel I'm saying "Lookit me! I'm good! SEE!" and then it feels like it's a show where I'm trying to pay for the angry stuff with isolated acts of kindness. I don't want kindness to be my Uncle Tom.

Bringing up the rear is a keen twisty bit of spite for religious jerks. Lots of people say you can't be morale without religion. I strongly disagree. So, subconsciously, I have to PROVE that I'm morale without religion. (Let's play spot the logic fault!) ^_^

But... Even if you strip all that stuff away, whatever is really 'me' is a kind and gentle thing. I should show that face more often.


When I sound angry, it's most often a distorted reflection of love. Anger is poorly-defined. There are at least two types of anger, *selfish and selfless. (*These are poorly chosen words. Give me better words than selfish and selfless!)

Selfish anger is the: "I hate Bob because he's luckier/more successful than me.", "I wanna kill this jerk who cut me off in traffic." I have those. Everyone does. Part of that monkey-brain survival kit. However, with my selfish angers, I tend to not talk about them as publicly; just to one or two friends. I also tend to rationalize them away. Bob may be doing better than me, but I'm more privileged than probably 75% of the people in the world. That guy who cut me off in traffic? Maybe he just got fired or something. I try not to drive angry, but I've done it sometimes, even if I'm ashamed to admit it.

Selfless anger is stuff like being upset about the war, national healthcare, discrimination against minorities. Most of that stuff really actually doesn't effect my personal life. I don't know a single person who's been killed or even seriously inconvenienced by the war. I have healthcare, and while I am a minority and sometimes feel threatened, the amount of discrimination I face on a daily basis is less than what many other groups experience. This is the stuff I rage about because I feel powerless to fix it. I want the world to be good for everyone. I don't know what to do about them and so I rage about them out loud, not really because I want other people to be angry but I think probably because I hope someone will have an answer and know how to fix it. :(

So... There's the part that's broken in me. I don't understand mean people. I understand angry and afraid. I don't understand how they can be okay with that. Either they're not smart enough to sort through what's in their heads and understand their rage and manage it, or they're just OK with being mean. :(

I cannot believe the latter of these. I sincerely believe that except for a very few severely damaged people, most of us are good at heart. So, it has to be the other one; they just don't spend the time to process what's making them angry on a selfish level.



I guess, then that the meta-solution is right there. Get people to re-think their selfish angers and fears. Get them to do it a lot and because of the way the brain works, they'll start applying it to other situations. Get someone to say, "Oh. Huh. I hadn't considered that." about anything, and they've taken a step towards thinking about the consequence of future actions. AT LAST! Some decent use for causality!


I'll stop rambling now.

Comments

[circuit-four.livejournal.com]

It's good to see you talking this stuff out with yourself, though! *hug* Just out of curiosity, was it a friend from online or RL who made that observation? Just 'cause I've found anger is another emotion that's real prone to getting magnified through text...

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

I think about stuff like this all the time. It just takes so long to write about it in a coherent fashion that I rarely do.

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

I was told at work that between my brother and myself I was known as the angry one. I never said anything in anger, but apparently whenever I was on the phone being really nice to someone I looked angry. I wish I had a mirror so I knew what they were talking about.

I had a conversation like this with my father. I was talking to him about his relationship with his brother, which is terrible, and I was talking about how they both seemed to be such angry people. He claims he never gets angry, he's only ever scared or confused. I asked him if that's what he felt when he used to beat me, and he got really defensive. I told him I wasn't trying to gilt him, I wanted to know, and he still maintained that he gets scared, not angry. I find it difficult to tell the difference.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

I believe I understand what your brother means. I explained my anger in much the same way yesterday. I was angry because I was envious, and that was rooted in a fear. Probably if we thought about it, Angry, Happy, Sad, Love, etc are parent classes with a few meta descriptors and functions that have more complex emotions subclassed off them. When someone else gets an accessor, if they know the child class for you well enough, they might key in on some of its functions and subtleties but they might also just use the common functions in the parent class. Also, doubtlessly, some people are sloppy coders and just throw everything into the parent class and bog down their processing.

Hmm... You know... Refactoring people might be an even more simple step towards getting them to let go of selfish angers more easily.

The Object Oriented Life

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

By Samantha What'shername

Forward by C. Rodriguez, author of The Object Oriented Sex Life

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Re: The Object Oriented Life

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

That was, without a doubt, the most terrifying thing I've read today. O_O;

Re: The Object Oriented Life

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

Then my work here is done!

[yetanotherbob.livejournal.com]

I hate Bob because he's luckier/more successful than me.

Aw... but, but, I'm cute!

Bob may be doing better than me, but I'm more privileged than probably 75% of the people in the world.

Joking aside, that's part of the secret, I believe. Ironically enough, having worse luck in some ways is what does build character and leads to a fuller life. We end up on the path of the unhappy socrates, but considering how deplorable the happy swine are, it's the better option. At times, I feel guilty that you've had such a rough life, and at the same time, envious because you've got a much more interesting life.

I'll stop rambling now.

You never need to stop rambling. It's great to see your thoughts and peek at your insight.

[xydexx.livejournal.com]

Ironically enough, having worse luck in some ways is what does build character and leads to a fuller life.

My awkward school years made into who I am today. -:)

[yetanotherbob.livejournal.com]

Although in retrospect, I don't mean to imply that a rough life is sufficient to having a fuller life. IE, a difficult path doesn't automatically mean you're interesting, and that one shouldn't put all or even some of the praise on being interesting on having a difficult path.

[paka.livejournal.com]

I'd assume people are far less angry on a day to day basis than they appear to be online and in their journals. In everyday life, one can't or doesn't want to blurt out sentiments like "I wish the Bush cabinet had to face war crimes charges" or "I think Christianity is a packet of lies and bigotry." So blogs are where those sentiments are going to wind up, perhaps all the more ugly for not being able to express it elsewhere. It's a biased sample.