Sometimes, I envy people who can yell at others.
Who can throw things.
Who can make you cringe by that one glare.
Who can reduce you to tears by their caustic words.
I am sure it feels good.
Letting it all out.
Venting.
I envy people who can express their anger, who can let others know the magnitude and heat of their rage. If only I could be like them, even for a day.
In school teachers told us, anger was bad, it was evil.
Acts performed in rage, were only to be regretted later.
They were wrong. So wrong.
One needs to do something when angry, anything other than crying yourself to sleep. I am tired. Tired of not showing any external signs of anger. I am sick of being angry inside. It has eaten me up, burnt me out. The next time someone/something makes me angry, I do not want to not do anything about it. I want to slap someone. I want to snap back. I want to do something, anything. Not nothing.
My friends, in jest, say I have developed stress issues. In all likelihood, they are right. I am stressed. I am sick and tired and angry. With the lack of logic and irrationality around me. With people, so many of them, enveloping me from all sides. Moronic people with their tactless manner and retarded humor. And they just seem to be everywhere!
I seem to be losing patience very easily these days. Kgp crowd, with its loud and raucous mannerisms, just drives me up the wall. There was a time I could dismiss the most irritating of things with a mere shrug. Now, it makes my skin crawl.
For example, just today I experienced uncontrollable rage pulsing through me. In the foundation day performance by ETMS, when some stupid morons, IIT'ians - touted as the best brains of the country, were whistling during the songs like a bunch of drunk hooligans. I wanted to drag out each and every one of them and throw them out. Put a DC on them! Slap them! Who, in their right minds, tries to drown out a melodious soothing song, with cacophonous shrill whistles? Who does such things? What are you whistling at? If asked individually, they won't be able to come up with even a semblance of a coherent English sentence. Ask them to make animal sounds, sitting inconspicuously in the crowd, and they will bring the house down.
But for how long?
Anger at your family is of the worst kind. It is helpless. It is ravaging. It is mind fucking. What can anyone possibly do? If only one could make them understand. If only. But that ship sailed away ages ago. Now it is merely a pretense, a role play. I know what I should say and I simply say so.
If only there was something close to genuine.
It wouldn't matter if it was dysfunctional, if it was broken, but if only it were real.
I live in a parallel universe disjoint from theirs, knowing that I will never be understood, ever.
Knowing that, in reality, I have no one to go to.
Knowing it will all be a lie, a mere facade necessitated by society, by unwritten laws, by nature.
It makes me angry. It makes me sad.
It makes me numb.
I think I have been angry with life for far too long now. It never surfaced. I bottled it all up perhaps. Now things don't seem to be going so well. I can feel the pressure building, the walls crumbling.
Any day from now, I am going to snap. It would be ugly. It would be damaging. It would be stupid.
It would be ecstatic.
Ah dude I know exactly what you mean. There was this time in our second year, when SN was performing during the inter-halls, english drams. You might remember the play, it centered around rape. It would have been a good scene, perhaps powerful even. We'll never know because of very conspicuous animal sounds from inconspicuous idiots in the crowd who brought the house down. (This line of yours was hilarious btw!) And I was so riled up, I kept yelling 'Imbeciles' into the crowd.
ReplyDeleteYes, it feels very good!
I know right! Imbeciles! Actually Indra said, at that time, that Poddy would have said this :)
ReplyDeleteHa!! Well, you have mentioned the exact thing that was making me insane all the time. And i was swearing to God all the time, that had it been an ETMS production in SF, and had i still been the GSec, how would have i kicked the gobshites out of the Audi..!! Bloody Morons..the majority of this breed of "IITians". And, the moment they see a girl, God knows what happens to them, IS THIS 2011 !!
ReplyDeleteFirstly, if a person irks you should always let him or her know (as long as it is reasonable); both for your sake and theirs.
ReplyDeleteAbout expressing anger: expressions are usually a two way street, while our thoughts (consciously, most of the time) trigger our expressions, it also works the other way around. Expressing your anger may actually make you angrier [1]. We, psychologists say, are not like bottles or balloons which will suddenly "burst" once too much anger builds up inside. This should not cause to deter the occasional display of displeasure, though. :)
Sometimes the best solution begins with a "C" and ends with a "annabis".
More seriously, I get around by not expecting much of people. Most people are idiots (not in the pejorative sense but as a quality involving things like lack of self-control). But I don't hate them. And they don't make me angry.
My justification of the above sympathetic view of people is that most people are simply not responsible for who they are. I personally am a product (cartesian, if you will :) ) of my genes and my upbringing; neither of which are / were under my control. Would I have turned out the way I am now had I had the MAOA gene [3]? How about being brought up in a slum? My current state of (supposedly) being able to think rationally is essentially an accident. I got lucky; lots of others did not.
PS: In case you want to get angrier, see [2]
[1] http://www.apa.org/topics/anger/control.aspx (page 3)
[2] http://dubeat.com/2008/11/molestation-horror-at-iit-fest/
[3] http://www.eyeondna.com/2007/06/26/maoa-gene-childhood-sexual-abuse-and-alcoholism/
well written man , one of your better works
ReplyDeletewell...random KGPians aside....its not a good idea to hold it back and then burst....you should give it some thought(and this blog post does prove that u have given some thought...so make it some more) and sort things out with people in your life. I know family can be a bit hopeless...but there must be someone in ur family u can talk to...like if u cant talk to ur dad, you could talk to ur mom and she could try and convey ur concerns the best she can...something like tht...i know it will be a watered-down version of ur concerns...but something is better than nothing right?....communicating the things that are bugging u is way better than pretending everything is fine and then just bursting out...imagine what would it be like for the person concerned...it would be like a bolt out of the blue...and it will do irreparable damage. Dont do that...talk while u still have time. TC
ReplyDelete"More seriously, I get around by not expecting much of people. Most people are idiots (not in the pejorative sense but as a quality involving things like lack of self-control). But I don't hate them. And they don't make me angry."
ReplyDeletePerfect! :)
The thing is that only the people(/things) I actually care for can make me angry, directly (when they are doing something irrational) or indirectly (when something irrational is happening to them) and I guess it's the same for sanjoy. The assumption that "most people are idiot" works for me as well and you can try it too.
PS : I have seen sanjoy's anger and it's kind of scary :P
@Sanjoy: I gave a lot of thought to what you said. And I agree with everything, but the problem is that I am not able to control being upset by trivial things these days.
ReplyDeleteTheoretically, I know it shouldn't bother me but beyond that it is not in my control. I guess it is just a phase, it will go away.
And thanks for your references :D
You are something!
I am glad for the genes you have which make you the way you are :)
@Hardii: I don't think I will ever burst out when it comes to family. It is a weight one has to pull all their life and I have accepted that.
ReplyDeleteI am taking things as they come, if there is something unpleasant in the future, I wouldn't think/care about it now.
I will take care, don't worry :)
Wow!
ReplyDeleteI will not waste your, and my time by giving "advice". But,
"IIT'ians - touted as the best brains of the country, were whistling during the songs like a bunch of drunk hooligans." <- this made you angry, just like this post made me proud of people from the same place.
Great post! Very well expressed. But as I always keep telling you, try to let things go... If there is nothing you can do, it's best to not be bothered about it.
ReplyDeleteExpressing anger is probably not as much of a luxury as you think it is. More often than not, people end up regretting it.
Reading your post was quite interesting, especially since, I used to feel pretty much the same things, once upon a time, after which there was a period during which I let my anger flow quite freely. Needless to say, this second phase wasn't very nice, however, it led me to understand much about the nature of anger. I noticed, in my case at least, that anger is an uncontrolled emotion, uncontrolled in the sense that it (usually)leads to some sort of loss on the part of the person experiencing it, and hence it is not a rational choice. Just to clarify, my definition of a "rational" choice is one that maximizes the profit(in terms of utility) of the decision maker. I've found that the the best way I can avoid anger is by having, in stock, a large set of rational responses to hypothetical situations, that have the potential to anger me. Already having a response ready, is analogous to having some physical action drilled into muscle memory. This results in an almost spontaneous response, much like a karate black-belt responding to an attacker. I have found that this response usually overrides the anger response. Note, that there is a distinct difference between this approach and bottling up anger. When you bottle up anger, you feel it, but choose not to act upon it, which is not really healthy, in my opinion. In this case however, you eliminate the feeling altogether, and also come out with the satisfaction, that you have demonstrated your superiority(as a thinking entity) over your circumstances. This satisfaction and sense of conquest, also evokes some sort of feeling of well-being, in contrast to the usually negative after-effects of venting anger. Further, this "training" also leads to a greater sense of security(just like in the case of a black-belt).
ReplyDeleteAlso, about "snapping", at the cost of sounding really cheesy, I'd like to say this: I've been there and done that, and it just makes things worse, leading to a vicious cycle of buildup and release, that ultimately leaves one mentally incapacitated.
P.S.:In fact, Sanjoy's comment describes one possible rational response to the situation of having to come in contact with someone who makes you angry. Also, while everything that I've said may sound a little preachy, you should keep in mind that they are my personal opinions, formed on the basis of my personal experiences, and the usual advice concerning a pinch of salt applies.
@String Theorist: Your take on anger management is pretty unusual but seems quite logical nonetheless. It must have been pretty tedious to come up with so many hypothetical scenarios, but then again, it is a one time cost.
ReplyDeleteI don't think pre-planning responses would work so well in my case, I would much rather train myself to be indifferent. Writing is also a great anodyne for me, which is why I wrote this post in the first place.
By the way, "String Theorist" doesn't quite help me in identifying you.