Omigosh, this is gonna be a confusing post, because I am wrestling with conflicting emotions following the very troubling realization that I love what I hate, and I hate what I love... simultaneously!
Holy shades of gray, Batman!
I'm speaking about things you may not realize, from the most direly important down to the least nattily insignificant (Natalie N Significant? I think I dated her in high school...)-- I'll give an example: Spicy peppers. Boy, do I love 'em. And hoo-boy, how I hate em too. I love the flavor, the anticipation of burn and the look of wide-eyed appreciation and awe on the faces of those too timid to try what I've done-- but I hate the actual spicy reaction on my tongue and lips, and the embarrassing way I sweat profusely after each dose. It literally looks like I've had a drink thrown in my face.
Now for an example of the insignificant (ho ho!), no of course I mean SIGNIFICANT (as in OTHER)-- I both love and hate my ex-wife. It's obvious that I love her-- that emotion came early in our relationship and remains, like an epee, to occasionally puncture the growing balloon of hate I have for the way things turned out.
Other things I love AND hate:
Kittens
Babies (for the same reasons!)
Fattening foods
Television
Sex
The beach
Vacations
Work
Friendship
Enemyship
...and the list goes on.
So am I strange and different, or is this a natural function of being alive? Is the complex nature of emotional response helpful or hurtful to our bright but brief visit here on planet Earth?
WHY CAN'T IT BE EASY!?!?!?!?
It's the yin and yang of life, I tell ya. You can't have one without the other; as a matter of fact, eliminating one would diminish or eliminate the other!
Good-------Bad
Up-------Down
Left-------Right
In-------Out
Happy-------Sad
Crazy-------Sane
Yes-------No
Pleasure---------Pain
Right-------Wrong
Calm-------Angry
All right. What the hell am I talking about TODAY? Is this a topic or is it a ramble? Do I have a cohesive thought on the matter? And how does this relate to anger management?
Okay... I don't know if it has anything to do with how we manage our anger, but I can tell you that this contrast of life-- the constant pulling and tearing of opposites-- is here to stay. I can't tell you if a higher being set up the universe this way, or if matter and energy simply organize themselves into two distinct sides, but I'm pretty certain that without it, all life and movement would CEASE. Even the mainstay of life in the new millennium, the computer, is designed at its most basic to work off of opposites-- the ON and OFF of 1's and 0's. Motors run because of opposite magnetic charges pushing each other away. And human politics operate by pitting one side against another to see which one is stronger.
Observing all of life from on high is a hobby of mine (I guess I really DO want to be a god), and I have come to the conclusion that, in complex and myriad ways, EVERYTHING RUNS BY REACTION. That may seem basic to you, but to me it was an eye-opener.
I love the story of creation (whether I believe it or not)-- it is pure and basic. Eden-- the perfect world. Everything's warm and fuzzy, the cat frolics with the dog and all the people walk around nude, unmindful, non judgemental. But THEN CAME THE SNAKE.
You might feel that sneaky, slithery serpent ruined everything beautiful about Eden, and you might be right. But he couldn't help it- he was merely responding to the immutable laws of the physical universe. Even the bible acknowledges the necessity of the pull and tear of life (although it is couched as a BAD thing), and enveloped it in the cloth of human foible, as undeserving as we are to take the blame for it all.
People's weaknesses are just part of the picture-- if there were NO people, this crackling, static force that makes everything go would continue on, unmindful of its own outcome. We ARE here though, and we notice everything. Then we discuss it, then study it, then posit theories about it, and then settle on a single theory we then call law, quite confident and even smug about our own rightness.
And THERE it is! It's those LAWS we create, based on theories, trial and error and political discourse, that smacks directly into human emotion and rebounds with a vengeance. The laws, which claim to help society run smoothly (and they DO... sort of) have the unintended side effect of unleashing a host of untenable emotions which clash and roil about in the conscience and are the cause of most of humanity's greatest horrors.
By holding each person up to an idealized version of "Human", then judging them unfit, then punishing them unfairly and with a metered dose of cruelty, we, in effect, dehumanize society.
Welcome to the downward spiral.
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