Archives for posts with tag: Anger

Anger as a resource

January 26, 2026 //
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“Hey! sweet ghapama
Whoever eats it is satiated
Hey! dear, sweet ghapama
Whoever doesn’t eat it, understands nothing!!”
Harout Pamboukjian

Theory has it that if you know your goal and remain focused you’ll get there.
‘Meritocracy’. That’s the name of the pretense…

Practice demonstrates that in order to ‘get there’, one needs ‘opportunity’.

The reality of the matter is simple.
Deceivingly simple and harsh as hail. Or hell… take your pick!
If you stay focused on a sensibly chosen goal you will cover a considerable distance. BUT ONLY AS LONG AS the opportunity field you are toiling will not change much. Too much for you to cope with.

There are three sides involved in this. Or dimensions…
Choosing the goal. Staying focused. Conservation of the playing field.

Staying focused is an individual thing. Something to be learned, for sure, but having more to do with the personal innards of each individual than with the community to which they belong.
Choosing the goal is, say, 50%-50%. Each individual is torn between their personal preferences and the various fads piled on them by families/society.
Conserving the playing field is the responsibility of the society. It’s the consequence of each individual doing their thing but the ultimate responsibility rests on the society as a whole.

What happened?
Simple.
Too many of us have stayed focused. On our individual goals. Set according to the prevailing fads circulating while we were young.
We’ve been so focused on our goals, on our respective individuals goals, that we didn’t notice the change. The fact that we’ve been changing the world. The narrowness of our focus prevented us from seeing anything else…
From understating that our goals were out of touch to start with. Not as important as they seemed at the beginning. And that pursuing them was detrimental. For us, for the society at large and for the environment.
Understandably, we’ve become frustrated. Angry…
In denial!

Some enterprising people have noticed the whole thing.
And have figured out that anger can be weaponized.
Used to herd us. To convince us to stop thinking about our fate. And to chase their goals instead…

One doesn’t need much to drive a herd.
A lure to entice, a red rag works perfectly, and a scare to hurry the reluctant.
Presently, globalization is the red rag of choice and the immigrant is the most efficient scare.

I’m of mixed extraction. Armenian and Romanian.
During the last 25 years, some 4 million Romanians have left the country. Most of them are still citizens and some of them continue to vote. To cast votes when the Romanian state organizes elections. Lastly, a majority of the Romanian emigrants currently living in the Western Europe have voted for anti-globalist and anti-immigrant parties. AUR (gold, in Romanian) and SOS.
And there are more Armenians living abroad – some 8 million, than the 3 million inhabiting Armenia proper.

Before wrapping up, I need to add that, as far as I know, the Armenian people have evolved in situ. Various foreign powers have sometimes controlled the territories inhabited by Armenian people but there were no known significant population influxes into the area. Until the Turkish speaking tribes up-rooted and overwhelmed the Armenians living in the flatter zones but that is another subject.
So.
We have an ancient people living in its original areal.
And one of the most cherished dishes of that people is Ghapama. Roasted pumpkin stuffed with rice and spiced with cinnamon.

Pumpkin is currently cultivated in Armenia. But it was brought there from America…
Rice and cinnamon don’t grow in Armenia! Never did…

Why are we so afraid of globalization?
Why have we allowed the scaremongering social-entrepreneurs to lure us?!?

Only because we are frustrated?
Angry enough to forget about ourselves?!?

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, effective communication, In English, manipulation, Psychology, skin in the game

A tricky one

December 9, 2024 //
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So, when Popper doesn’t tolerate intolerance,
he is being mean?

Intolerance is something no one should tolerate.

From where I’m looking, intolerance is like a pebble in your shoe. You may walk for a while, without removing the pebble, but the damage will be there. For certain.

And if you persevere, the damage will be permanent.

Your question is a tricky one. Popper is not necessarily mean when refusing to tolerate intolerance.
He would have been mean only if he used unkind words when trying to convince the intolerant to change their hearts.

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Categories awareness, Choices we make, effective communication, In English, man as a measure for all things, Psychology, skin in the game

“Don’t Look Back in Anger”

March 2, 2024 //
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It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law
if it acquires the political power to do so,
and will follow it by suppressing opposition,
subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young,
and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics.
Robert A. Heinlein, Postscript to Revolt in 2100.

Religion is the metaphusical ‘thing’ inside which people who hold a set of tenets to be true are able to build a community.

Religion is sociological phenomenon. Something belonging to the realm studied by those who try to understand how large number of people work together.

Religions – on the other hand – are ‘sets of tenets’ put in practice by various groups of people.
Sets of tenets which survive for as long as they continue to help the people who uphold them in their quest to survive as a group. As a community.

Religion cannot be ‘changed’.
Religion can be studied. May be better understood.
Like physics. You can’t ‘change’ physics! With what? With chemistry? Things don’t work like this. The only thing you may do about physics is to ‘deepen’ your knowledge about it.

Religions can, and sometimes have to, be changed.
By the very people who ‘use’ them to survive.

Since nobody can survive on their own, each and everyone of us needs to belong.
To a community.
To a religion, actually!

And what do people do when they realize survival is impossible in certain conditions?
Die or do something about it, right?

Now, which community can survive based on hate?
It doesn’t matter whether you are asked to hate somebody inside or outside your community.
Whether you hate individually or collectively.
Hating – or despising – somebody blinds you and exhausts you. Puts a huge burden on your back. Focuses your attention so tight that you are no longer able to notice the real dangers.
Those which actually make you less likely to survive.

And this is valid both for you as an individual and for you as a hating community.

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, authoritarianism, awareness, collective identity, effective communication, evolution, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, Psychology, religion, skin in the game, Trust

Refocus

January 3, 2024 //
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The key word here is ‘anger’.

Had we been less angry, maybe our reaction would have been more ‘efficient’.

Instead of being angry with the sinners, we could try to convince them. Those of them who can be convinced…

After all, a sin is but a possibility. An ‘opportunity’, not a fatality.

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Categories alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, evolution, In English, man as a measure for all things, Psychology, skin in the game, teleology

Anger versus getting angry.

April 18, 2016 //
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Just finished reading, again, another excellent post written by John Faithful Hamer on Committingsociology.com

I remember now that something was nagging me after reading it for the first time. I also remember the pangs of helplessness felt almost a year ago, when I couldn’t identify what was nagging me.

Well, this time I nailed it.

“Getting angry isn’t really like releasing the built-up pressure in a steam engine; it’s far more like exercising a muscle group. Every time you give in to the desire to lose it, you strengthen your “anger muscles”; every time you resist the urge, you weaken them.”….
“So perhaps it’s time to stop preaching the gospel of expression, and revisit the much-maligned virtues of repression.”

“Anger” and “getting angry” are not the same thing.
Anger is just a feeling – and, hence, a source of ‘energy’ – while ‘getting angry’ is the manner in which we allow it, consciously or unconsciously, to take us over.
I fully agree that ‘getting angry’ only worsens the situation only I’m afraid that ‘resisting the urge’ isn’t any better. In fact that would be no different from tightening your arse because you don’t want to fart in public.
The problem is not solved, not at all, only postponed. You still need to relieve yourself.
By widening Freud’s concept of repression to encompass more feelings than the simple embarrassment we might find a reason to continue to look for a manner in which to ‘release that built up pressure’.
Only now we are faced with a new problem, since we’ve already agreed that ‘getting angry’ is not the best thing to do.
Freud, again, to the rescue.
How about widening another one of his concepts, sublimation?
How about learning to express, this time consciously, our intense negative feelings in a socially acceptable, and hence a lot more effective, manner?
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Categories Choices we make, cooperation, effective communication, freedom, Mindset, Mutual Respect, Psychology, Trust