The Era of The Perma-HissyFit

[thoreau]

This morning on my way to work the street level bus system stopped. An entire F trolley had to unload; thankfully we were right next to a underground stop. The driver announced that the F wasn't going anywhere and please disembark - and a good half of the train reacted with outloud expletives and without a word to the driver got off the train. As a group we headed downstairs; where in the Muni turnstyles a homeless man was arguing with police and blocking the turnstyles; the group reacted with more anger and impatience until someone pointed out that their Muni passes work on BART - so a good 20 of us headed through the BART turnstyle down for a train. We get to the bottom of the escalator - and the BART system shows that (god forbid) we'll have to wait five minutes for a train. By the time the train gets there - some of the 20 people from my original F line push themselves aggressively onto the train before folks have a chance to get off. This starts an argument on the BART train that lasts until I get off on Montgomery downtown. On my way to the up escalator - one of the more vocal people in the argument tries to force herself in front of several people. When a man in the line suggests that she not push - she calls him a pig and pushes herself into the group hitting people with her purse all the way up the escalator.

I get to my office and I find myself simply overwhelmed by all the anger. People out there are so angry.

How do we lose sight of the "us" and find ourselves so focused on that effort to secure what we think we must have or deserve that anger is the only response to life? How did we decide that it is okay or acceptable to walk over the backs of others without every looking back?

I used to have a life that was RULED by anger. (just ask bootedintexas or septimuswarren) Everything I did was ruled and managed by blaming, resisting, lashing out to keep myself protected when I felt that my stake in how things should go was not being taken into account. While I may have had well-thought-out reasons for attempting to strong-arm others to get my way, in the end - my behavior was a decade long old-fashioned, pain-inducing, self-centered hissy fit. and I feel that (with a different perspective nowadays) I'm recognizing that hissy fit mentality in the people around me every single moment. (particularly recently) It's like our society is stuck in a perma-hissy fit.

What is the antidote?

Well - that antidote to anger (hatred, intolerance, and wishing others ill for any reason) is finding some way to regain a sense of openness so that you can act with compassion.

Aggressive falls away when you are able to stop, breathe and take a giant step back in order to enlarge your perspective on what is upsetting you. It is always possible to take one more step back to enlarge your perspective on what makes you angry. If your compassion hasn't returned, you have not stepped back far enough.

And it is not easy. Compassion can be really, really, really hard when you think about all the people and situations you find infuriating. Acting compassionately doesn't neccesarily mean being sweet and nice, or giving all your stuff or power away. In Buddhist thought, compassion is synonymous with skillful action, action that is rooted in seeing reality from the largest perspective possible. When you have the proper perspective, you know without thinking what the next right action is.

I wish there was a way to encourage folks to take that step back mentally (and perhaps physically) the next time they react to something like a broken F line train; or the slowness of the line for the escalator; or the long line at starbucks.... and even big picture issues - taking a step back when you hear hate speech, or when you watch an electorate vote your rights away. Anger is an expected human response. I get that - and accept it. But when anger is your only response - perhaps it is time to take that step back and widen your perspective.

The true antidote to anger is knowing how to create time, no matter how brief, between what you observe and feel and what you think. This gap is quite precious. It contains the ever-present opportunity to hear the truth, work with difficult feelings, offer what is needed, and change destructive habits. With it, you always have a choice about how you feel and how you act.

I am hardly a role model in this situation. I react with anger still; and when it does surface people around me notice because I work so hard to keep my emotional responses in the compassion-zone vs. the hissy fit zone. (ah therapy terms.... good times) Since I've worked to de-anger my life - I realize that like a reformed smoker or a an addict that has given up his/her favorite drug... that I react to unrestrained anger in others much more compassionately. but - that doesn't mean I have accept it - but I can find the strength to ask "why are you so angry about this?" vs. simply dismissing them because they are angry.

I understand anger - it's part of me - and it's part of you. Managing it - and finding a path of compassion is the way to navigate the world with the best of yourself in the lead.

Comments

[quirkstreet.livejournal.com]

Not that it's easy for me, but it was beneficial for me to live for years in fear of someone else's uncontrolled anger and then later, having gotten away from that, notice how often I acted the same way. Because it's a hell of an inducement to work on modulating anger to watch yourself become the putz you grew up with.

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

being in touch with our emotions, understanding them - and finding a way to weave in and out of them is a healthy perspective. and modulating anger is a fun startrekkish term. :) like how they "modulated" the shields to adapt to Borg phasers. Is there anything that Star Trek can't solve? (wink)

[snousle.livejournal.com]

Heh, nothing like a reformed sinner, eh?

The thing that makes anger so difficult is that it is so visceral. I have in the past experienced it not so much as a symptom or effect, but as a prime mover; something which, like sex or hunger, other motivations are hung off of.

It is only recently that I've come to understand it as a natural response to some pretty serious trauma from a time before memory - that I actually have a type of PTSD. To have simply "let go" of that anger would never, ever have worked because it has always been there for good reasons. In hindsight, I see exhortations about "letting go" as terrible advice that denies the relevance of the angry person's personal history and experience.

Understanding it this way makes it much easier to avoid directing it counterproductively, at inappropriate targets. I will always be paranoid, hypervigilant, and in some ways very afraid of people, but knowing that is rooted in some other experience rather than being a relevant concern in most present situations makes it possible to finally accept that such situations really are unworthy of attention.

I "got" the Buddhist notion of compassion after reading some commentary on how far it should be extended; the answer was "even to stones". And that made perfect sense. I think about it every time I do something with a stone. It was then I realized that compassion was really a form of deep understanding (almost to the point of "becoming") and did not, as you point out, require being "nice". One can very well be compassionate for the chicken one eats for dinner and not end up vegetarian. ;-)

I'm curious about this experience because it seems to me you were in some sense following this group. Were you really compelled to remain with them? I completely understand the fascination and have certainly exercised it myself, but maybe the next step is to walk away from that, as well?

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

Your response here makes me very happy. (and yes - I do tend to talk on this topic like a 10 year chip reformed anger addict) You speak precisely to why my meditative practice and my research into Buddhism works for me. that compassion is the journey to find a deeper understanding of the world around me - and in my life.

Your question about my interaction with 'the group' this morning hadn't occured to me. I needed to get to work - and it seemed like I was traveling in this angry 'cloud' of personalities. and only when I got off the BART and up in the fresh air - did I add a few blocks to my walk to work and work it through in my head. Perhaps it would have made a more pleasant morning if I'd let the group from the F train go - and waited a few minutes --- but right at the turnstiels was the anger and aggression of the homeless guy. well - it just felt that for that 20 minutes this morning? anger was in every direction. which prompted my posting.

[mrdreamjeans.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your wisdom from experience. I find myself angry a lot right now. Your words are a cautionary tale.

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

i tried really hard not to write an admonishment - but to talk about my own journey. Everyone is entitled to their relationship with their anger and love and the spectrum of emotions that we are (or sometimes are not) in touch with. Anger is going to be there regardless - it is part of who we are - but if we "lead" with anger - then it clouds how we might use it together with other positive or personally progressive ways of interacting and following our own unique paths. I hope I didn't come off like I was judging or telling anyone how they should lead their lives - that certainly wasn't my reason for posting.

[steven-homer.livejournal.com]

For me, anyway, what I learned in 6 years of therapy is that anger stems from a need to control. And a need to control stems from fear.

I've been trying to pay attention to the things that trigger it for me, and more often than not it's because I feel like things ought to be done a particular way, or people ought to behave in a particular way. Yet when I examine it, in almost every instance it either makes absolutely no difference in my life how people behave, or it makes very little difference. Not enough difference to justify the reaction it evokes in me.

Driving, of course, is a big one: I used to spend a lot of time getting worked up about how people drive. Until I realized two things: first, unless they actually hit me, then it doesn't matter how they are actually driving. My anger stems from a need to make them drive a different way not for the practical effect that it has actually had on my life but for an abstract need to control how they behave. And second, it's not personal. Other people are driving like morons for a million reasons, not one of which has anything to do with me.

It's probably too complicated to go into here, but ultimately the need to control, especially the need to control things that don't affect us or are not within our control, is almost certainly about underlying fears -- fears of chaos, unpredictability, or about what will happen if we are not good boys.

I agree: compassion -- towards ourselves, towards others -- is the key.

[mrdreamjeans.livejournal.com]

Not at all! I've just been thinking about this so much recently and you wrote a cogent post about it. Thank you.

[joebehrsandiego.livejournal.com]

Wow. Bingo.

This could have been a channeling from several of my therapy sessions ...

Robert knows that I certainly have Opinions, and (can) have a Temper. Sometimes the former are worth sharing and discussing; sometimes not. The latter serves very little practical purpose - and that can be a very difficult thing to remember and manage.

You put it very well here; thank you.

@Robert - Thank *you* for this post. It's made me do some (constructive) thinking today.

[tinman11201.livejournal.com]

what a wonderful post, thank you!! We have that quite often here in Manhattan, too and your post is a great reminder.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

I used to spend a lot of time getting worked up about how people drive.

I think a big part of the problem is that your reaction to drivers would make perfect sense if we were all driving in a village of 30 familiar people instead of a city of a million strangers.

Historically, the human race has almost no experience with urban anonymity, so we instinctively react in ways that would have modify other's behavior in effective ways, without realizing that the environment has changed in ways that render those instincts ineffective.

Once I noticed this basic confusion of applying tribal instincts to urban realities, I started seeing it everywhere. It is also the reason people get frustrated with bureaucracies, and so forth. The modern world presents itself to the human mind as an ever-present village idiot that behaves stupidly and never listens. So of course it's frustrating.

[quirkstreet.livejournal.com]

You know, I love this response a LOT. In my own life, the only way it has ever made sense to "let go" of anger has been to first embrace and understand it. And I've almost never gotten a person near me who was angry to become less angry without being present with them on the basis of their feeling being VERY real to them.

It can be exhausting but it's worth it.

[quirkstreet.livejournal.com]

My siblings had a nickname for me in my late twenties and early thirties. It was "Flash." As in .... Flash Temper.

The things that triggered my anger were not trivial. But anger wound up solving so FEW of them. Most of them, it made far, far worse.

I get angry much more often than I think most people realize. I try not to bury it, but I do try to channel it in some way so that I'm not that guy any more.

And yeah, I wasn't thinking of shield modulation a la Star Trek, but it fits ... ;-)

[pectopah.livejournal.com]

I read your story and felt myself reacting as if I was there...looking for an exit and devising an alternative, down to calling my appointment and rescheduling.

I know the feeling of living in anger and I know that I don't want to be around it anymore. I also find it hard to be compassionate with folks whose anger seems disproportionate and I don't really care to know why they are angry. I feel sorry for them and move on.

I also feel that this public anger is part of a culture of entitlement--we are told as Americans that we are entitled to everything and when we don't get it, we need to be angry because we are somehow being shafted/denied/disrespected. In Montreal, the public transit system has its problems and breakdowns and folks get upset, but I have never seen anything approaching what you describe.

[notdefined.livejournal.com]

I'm with you there. My previous partner was bipolar and you learn quickly how to bite your tongue and breathe deeply. Many a night I lay awake because I was afraid to go to sleep.

[joebehrsandiego.livejournal.com]

... it's how the Martians handle anger, and hate after all ...

("Stranger in a Strange Land")

Sci-Fi geek off/

3:24

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

timestamp: 3:24

[excessor.livejournal.com]

What is the antidote?

Promote the New World Order by installing me in my rightful place as Emperor of the Universe. There will be social etiquette reeducation camps for those who can be reeducated. For those who refuse, there other career choices. (Hint: don't see Soylent Green.)

[joebehrsandiego.livejournal.com]

"Dictatorship: Efficient, and Fun (if you know the right people)!"

Remind me to stay away from the guacamole-flavored crackers, though.

Default action

[vibrantmktplace.livejournal.com]

For me? The Prayer of St. Francis. Works every time...

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

Fear is the keyword here. One of my favorite books is Susan Piver's book "HOW NOT TO BE AFRAID OF YOUR OWN LIFE" - and in it she talks about how find a new relationship with fear - and ends the book with a seven day 'freedom from fear' retreat - - that I took when I first read the book in 2006 and do at least once a year since.

Here are the details:
http://susanpiver.com/documents/Freedom_From_Fear.pdf

[snowboardjoe.livejournal.com]

Excellent point here and I speak from experience with angry driving. I used to allow my emotions rule how I drove on the road. I wanted control over how people drive and that's so unrealistic obviously.

Used to be when someone flew past me on the highway I would consider them a complete maniac. Now I'm thinking that maybe they're late for work and about to get fired, maybe they're rushing to the hospital for a loved one or maybe they just needed 10 seconds of a little exhilaration.

Lots of anger lately

[snowboardjoe.livejournal.com]

This post really hit home with me. As you may or may not have noticed, my life has been full of a lot of anger the past few weeks. Rage would be more like it and many times has brought me to tears more often than usual.

Writing about anger on LJ puts it in a different perspective that is more objective. It organizes my thoughts and I start to see patterns. I even see some things where my reaction to situations was unfounded. The shear number of times I post an angry post regarding work throws up many other flags as well. I need to learn to stop reacting negatively to it all. It's so hard when my emotions boil over.

I believe there is a direct correlation to how angry people get and the impact it has on the body and ultimately one's lifespan. I use that as an additional reminder of how much I'm hurting myself by allowing anger to rule my world.

Thanks so much for sharing this experience today. This came at a really good time for me and the responses have been overwhelming and encouraging.

[kroyd.livejournal.com]

The lady going up the escalator hitting folks with her purse made me laugh. It's easy to explain her behavior and I feel bad for her. She's mentally ill. Looks like a full-blown manic episode to me. Whether this is true or not I find it easier to cope with such behavior if I remember that mentally ill folks exist, and when they have a bad day it is really really bad and it's usually much longer than a day. She may be in that mood for days or even weeks. Their rancor rubs off on mildly irritable folks and that rage just snowballs. Explodes may be a better word.

[steven-homer.livejournal.com]

I try to direct my thoughts in the same direction when I see someone driving like a maniac. I even sometimes send them a little wish that they get whatever it is they need from driving that way. Sometimes, it's through gritted teeth -- anger is a visceral thing, as was pointed out above.

But of course driving is just one example. The larger insight, for me anyway, is that in virtually every human interaction we really have no idea what the other person is "really" doing. That is, we all come at each other out of our own personal histories, acting out our own personal dramas, rarely really intending (or even seeing) the effect we're having on other people.

[steven-homer.livejournal.com]

I'm only interested in this on two conditions: first, we all get snappy uniforms and, second, we get to participate in giant synchronized displays on Dear Leader Day.

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

:)

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

anger destroyed pretty permanently my relationship with my sister - which you'll rarely hear me discuss. She's two years older - and is the angriest most "flash like" person I've ever encountered. (granted family buttons and all; she's probably not, but...) Nobody can turn on my anger to full "must incinerate you" flame like my sister. Once she decided the way to trigger my anger response was to write my ex Jon in Idaho - and tell him all the terrible things I'd done to my family and how I got HIV to hurt my family. Yeah - she's a winner.

But meditation practice has helped me really find a way PAST letting that particularly negative emotional path take hold. as I was mentioning to someone else - it feels often (to break it down awfully simply) - that when I meditate I'm sitting in a giant universal charging station letting the universe charge my battery back up so the playlist in the rest of my life plays with clarity and precision.

Anger - is usually about fear - and fear is usually about control or our lack of it. and once you embrace that you can't really control anything - it makes anger seem like a silly response to most anything.

Re: Lots of anger lately

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

anytime Mr. Joe. Have you considered giving the 7day thingamajig a try?

[pklexton.livejournal.com]

This is a great post. I need constant reminding about how destructive and unproductive anger usually is. I tend to direct too much anger at trivial things. As for the big things that possibly merit true anger, I find anger usually blinds me to the most effective response. It's really a bad deal all the way around.

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

we should do tea at Samovar sometime - we've been lurking at each others journals for far too long not to have met face to face.

[pklexton.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a great idea. Never been there but would love to try it! :)

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

There is one in the Castro - and one at Yueba Buena - lets compare calendars?

[excessor.livejournal.com]

I haven't given this much thought, but off the top of my head, I'd say that my uniforms will feature jock straps and sensible boots. The displays on Dear Leader Day will indeed be synchronized, but they will likely involve slings rather than parades. I'm much more sensible about how this should all work.

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

finally! I've been waiting for you to work the word sensible and boots into the same sentence. THANK YOU Dear Leader! (wink)

(and on a more serious note - I would love your thoughts on anger and such since you commute so far each day and work for an every changing mega-corp - do you witness a lot of anger out there or?)

[excessor.livejournal.com]

I've never read about anger and how it affects us. I think there are different kinds of anger and it seems to me that their motivations are different, although perhaps not unconnected.

Using anger to describe some of the situations may point to a poor vocabulary. Is anger over the pursuit of poor economic policy by the government the same as anger at having been physically pushed? I suspect not.

I know now that I grew up in a strange family. My dad travelled constantly, so I can only recall a handful of times we spent with him that weren't focused on household chores. There were no vacations, apart from family visits. There were precious few bonding moments with him. My mom was basically a single parent and she was mentally ill, which is not a good combination for anyone. Oh, the terrifying stories…

I discovered Star Trek in middle school. My hero throughout my teens was Mr Spock and I practiced at erasing all emotion. This may have been suboptimal in terms of developing mature interpersonal skills.(</tongue-in-cheek>

It is not unsurprising that some friends and romantic interests were unhappy with how unflappable I was/am. I'm really not given to emotional outbursts and I still believe there's a certain decorum that precludes expressing anger in public. I have had to learn how to express my anger maturely. It's not easy.

I think a lot of the problems we see (and that you saw on your commute) result from people thinking that acting out in public is perfectly acceptable. It's appalling and points to a disregard of a mature, social persona that I think should all expect. When someone plays his iPod too loudly, we should be able to ask him to turn down the volume and expect that he will. It would be easy to ascribe a lack of civility to the undereducated or to those who live in a low economic status.

I work for a successful high tech company. In fact, I have spent my entire post-college work career in high tech. At every place, I observe overly entitled people who live their lives disconnected from reality. I'm amazed at how childish people become when things don't go their way. People with advanced degrees suddenly revert to 3rd-grade tantrums: in the current round of cost cutting, our company announced that it would no longer pay for employees' broadband services. The hue and cry raised has been embarrassingly immature, with people threatening to limit work efforts, etc. Oy.

I completely understand, however, when people get angry when a policy or practice purports to say one thing and then subsequent actions go against that policy or practice. At work, our President has said repeatedly that we will not move jobs offshore (to India or China) just because of lower workers' wages, and yet this is exactly what we're doing. Individual contributors are angry and confused, but that anger is dim compared to how managers and directors react because they understand they're being asked to do bad things. The disillusionment is entirely real. This is how organizations die.

Another example is your commute example. As an isolated event, the reactions are probably extreme. But in the context of a broader look, maybe not. Consider that parking downtown is prohibitively priced. I don't take Muni, but my impression is that it is unreliable, slow, uncomfortable, expensive, and crowded. The problems are well known and SF likes to think of itself as a major city. Further, Muni raises fares and its share of the budget grows, yet the service never gets better. I'd say that's a good reason to get angry.

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

The basic adult pass will increase to $55 on July 1 and $60 on Jan. 1. I don't think (however) that the anger I witnessed was about Muni - it was about entitlement. Like because I paid my $1.50 - the service will never break. or - I need to be at work now where is the goddamned train? or - I need to be on this BART train more than you need to get off of it first. (ooooh thats a petpeeve of mine - people pushing onto a train before people can get off of it)