Boiling blood

Joseph Lewis D’Silva

Does your blood boil? Or, are you breathing fire? Don’t take me literally; these expressions only mean a person is getting angry. Anger in general is ‘destructive’ or ‘constructive’.

Destructive anger can be very intense and upsetting. For example, a shocking happening can make one aggressive towards others. Public anger is aroused when speeding trucks knock down people, causing death. People with sudden anger zoom in from nowhere, and express their anger through words and actions of flinging stones at the truck.

Anger is a human emotion of extreme displeasure. Sometimes, when two parties to a dispute express anger through words, say, “Is it your father’s property?” At this point the other person loses his calm and attacks him with blows, saying, “I can’t stand the way you dragged my father into the picture.”

Anger is momentary madness. It is wild beast that unleashes itself in us; and makes us go with hammer and tongs, to commit a crime on doubt, say of infidelity.

A mild form of destructive anger may cause self-harm to one’s body, like for example by starving, perhaps for some wrong that one did or when the person feels unhappy about his or her failures or slightest criticism from others.

Some times when situations do not turn out the way jealous hearts want, they show deliberate anger by spoiling the name of person in the office, the innocent individual works or play the game of ‘passing the buck’ on the human one hates. Such angry attitude springs from a deep rooted self-importance -- a BIG ego -- an over-inflated sense of self; the bigger the ego the stronger the anger.

Anger can affect mind and body. When we are angry we are not able to think properly and act rationally; our heart beats harder and our blood pressure goes higher. It is said that anger is a fire that burns the self and others as it happened to the farmer and the fox in Aesop’s story where a fox ate the farmer’s chicken and ducks. The farmer out of anger set the fox’s tail on fire; it ran through the ripe wheat field of the farmer, which also caught fire. The farmer was in tears, for in harming the fox he harmed himself with heavy loss of wheat crops and fouls. Therefore, according to society, anger rarely pays. But this statement is partly true.

Anger is not destructive in all cases. It depends on how one handles it. When people feel fed up with things that are going on in the place they live in, the need arises to make a positive change. At this stage constructive anger is a key factor in driving people to join movements and groups. Anger and ego help us perform worldly functions. Young Gandhi protested because he had ego, which was hurt and thus was a key player in India’s freedom movement. A social activist who feels no anger can never provoke a change.

Anger is Nature’s way of attaining desirable ends. It is a tool which helps us either to break or build. It is like a psychological knife to carve or to kill. If it is wisely and widely used, we can make this world a better place; as it is not destructive in all cases.