The Regret Soup of Temper Lost and Reason Found
Despite the ongoing parade of grown people acting like angry children in 2021 America, I'd like to hope that with age comes some modicum of temperance.
As I sit in the desert sun smoking Captain Black Cherry pipe tobacco and sipping on a Modelo, I drift into that perilous territory of regretful nostalgia. I remember those many times when, in an effort to exert control of a situation, I lost my ever-loving shit and resembled nothing less than a random Wal Mart customer throwing a tantrum at an insult or request to follow the rules in place.
It's a bit embarrassing to think of the occasions in my youth (and, in some cases, well beyond what any normal standard of youth could entail) when I lost control, screaming and thumping and doing my damnedest to intimidate someone enough to simply have them acquiesce to my demands. Tantrum-throwing is an art-form and I was a master at it.
The times they be a changing.
I'm no longer angry. I mean, pretty much at all. Either I wised up, find myself lacking the energy to become outraged, or am truly embracing my More Spock, Less Kirk mantra. Whichever the case the rage has all but subsided completely. That's good for me because so many others are in full-on battle mode at the drop of a hat and these days that can equal serious injury or death.
About 30 murders nationwide have been attributed to incidents that started with road rage. More than 12,500 injuries to driver violence, out of 10,000 car accidents since 2007. Of the deaths related to road rage, most have been considered deliberate murders.
Anger, frustration, and other mental stress can trigger abnormal heart rhythms that may lead to sudden death, new research shows. In the first study of its kind, a group of researchers has demonstrated that mental stress alone can provoke these dangerous heart rhythms.
Although anger can be channelled constructively, it seems clear that aggressive behaviour can compound. Aggressive actions most often increase the likelihood of further aggression, and enacted aggression does not reduce aggressive impulses.
Violence and aggression beyond a mild degree almost always involve additional factors. A tendency towards impulsivity and keeping company with delinquent peers are risk factors.
When I see a woman screaming at a convenience store employee because he refuses to sell her a case of Miller Lite until she puts on a mask, I start to judge. And then I remember that time when members of an improv group I was in decided to complain about the lack of audience to a point that I threw a bar stool across the room.
When I watch a video of a man so angry that the McDonald's he goes to consistently puts onions on his "made-to-order" hamburger that he starts pulling cash registers off the counter and smashing them, I think What a fucking asshole. Then I recall that one time when I jumped on top of the hood of a Subaru because he was banging into the back of my car in his own moment of pique due to my shitty parking.
When I hear about Frederick Joseph routinely provoking white people with his camera and charges of racism (including a woman putting her feet up on a plane and a drunk woman telling him to 'stay in his hood') I think that the only difference between him and the people he films is who is doing the filming. The idea that Joseph has never lost his temper in public would indicate a level of maturity that his ongoing obsession with garnering social status by instigating incidents does not support.
"Say it one more time and I'll kick your ass!"
The nerds were a little drunk on wine coolers and false bravado so I knew there would be no such ass-kicking in the near future. Having been a few bar fights in my day, I knew the louder the bark, the less vicious the bite.
It was an odd thing to get so ginned up about.
I had been invited to a party by a theater friend. I wanted to get out, thought I might meet a girl, and the prospect of free booze was always a winning strategy for me in those days.
The party was full-on nerd. There was a party-wide game of Vampire going on. Cosplay Nosferatu everywhere, pretending be the sexy creatures of the night in clothing that was perhaps a bit too tight and made many of the dudes in tow look like overstuffed sausages with capes and slicked back hair.
The thing I said that got me in trouble came when I encountered three incels arguing the merits of Star Wars. I love Star Wars but I'm not speaking in Wookie any time soon. At one point in the heated discussion over the feasibility of the Millennium Falcon to go into hyper-drive with a broken something one of the nerds looks at me. "You joining in or just lurking?"
"Oh. Just listening. When it comes to Star Wars, I think I was Lucas's audience of choice. I was twelve years old when it hit the theaters and the whole franchise is just a space opera written for twelve year olds."
It was as if I had shat right there in their punch bowl.
There was no parking lot melee. The thing that perplexes me is how angry the subject matter spun everyone up. Sure, it's a movie that has crossed cultural boundaries and inspired billions to "use the Force," a tale of heroism at a time when we desperately need heroes, a milestone. But it's just a movie, right?
You'll discover that losing your temper is just that—a loss.
We've been this angry as a nation before. We've been this divided. The margins of society have been at war this aggressively many times. 1984. 1968. 1933. This partisan divide we all bemoan as if the failure of democracy is at hand is overstated and old hat. What's different is the speed and frequency at which we communicate this sense of cultural outrage. What's new is a series of social media algorithms designed to push the outrage to the front over anything else.
These algorithms intentionally exaggerate the reasons for the anger. The media, in a complete paralysis on how to deal with Twitter, reports news that 10,000 retweeted some hyperbole about police racism or vaccine authoritarianism as if 10,000 was a serious number. So we spend more of our time dwelling on our frustration and our anger sits ready, at a moment's notice, to explode.
Like a section of society bracing for a fight all the time, spurred on by our smartphones, we lose our shit more often without a single thought to what the expression of that anger will actually accomplish. All practicality is tossed out the window in order to exact revenge upon the microaggression or the guy who cut you off in traffic.
When my mother—a kind and loving soul, the type of person who goes out of her way to show generosity to anyone in need—expresses that she hates Donald Trump or any supporter of him, I am alarmed. Hatehas never been in her vocabulary but she says it without a thought these days. When ordinary people routinely use social media to wish rape, mayhem, and death on strangers they encounter online with the same casual nature one might merely flip someone off, we're in trouble.
1
Limit Your Presence on Every Social Media Platform
Sure, I was a belligerent manchild in my earlier days without the internet but I can also say without contradiction that worst threat I ever threw out in those spewing babyman incidents was an ass-whopping. No guns. No threats of lethal violence. No wishes of rape. No desire to get someone fired.
Add the secret sauce of hour by hour contact with assholes is not the desirable behavior. We already know that Instagram fucks up young girls, that TikTok is more addictive than sugar, that Faceborg is more like a hostile foreign nation than a communication platform.
It's unreasonable to get you to eliminate these outlets because they’re ingrained at this point but you can moderate your presence.
2
Stop Doomscrolling
We already know how fucking skewed and biased almost all media is today so give them less of your attention. Less swimming in the putrid pond of how awful the world is and more time focusing on what's right in front of you.
3
Examine the Pragmatics of Losing Your Temper
You'll discover that losing your temper is just that—a loss. And you will lose far more than your temper in the equation. Practice patience rather than a need for vengeance. Be less judgmental and more understanding.
If that all sounds a bit too kumbaya, try this—grow the fuck up. As a former raging shitass, a recovering rage-aholic, I had to grow up and become more rational and less emotional. If a hardcore RageBaby like myself can grow up, so can you and you’ll regret less in life if you start now.
Yes. I'm saying to suppress some of your emotions. At least in the Wal Mart or a nerd party.