This Is Not Happening

Until very recently I never thought much about how my angry outbursts are counter-functional. I just blocked those moments out of my memories, as if it never happened due to the shame of their existence. I know that I do get angry. I know that I have outbursts of anger sometimes, but I tend to forget about them.

Maybe I am ashamed of my own anger and my lack of control when I have outbursts. I wonder if all people who have anger “issues” (whatever that means) have a hard time, like I do, reflecting on the anger itself.

What can be accomplished from a place of anger? Not a lot. At least not in my experience. In my experience, dealing with my own angerĀ as well as teaching and working with students, angry outbursts are intended to display some sort of confidence. ConfidenceĀ is the intention of angry outbursts – to display strength in the face of adversity. Why, then, do you think that angry outbursts often result in the person coming off more like a temper-tantruming child who skipped their nap time rather than that of a shaolin monk?

It all has to do with control. See, when someone is confident they are calm. They are as cool as the Fonz. When someone is angry, you instantly know that they are backed into a corner and they are defending themselves. Fight not flight. But this kind of outburst is a last resort option. It is the opposite of confidence.

As I am working on Hipster Picnic I am forcing myself to examine the ugly bits of my own life very closely. Angry outbursts at the people I love are a part of them. Mind you that Hawk is a very concentrated version of myself created under the very critical eye of my inner self-loathing artist (at least that is what I am telling myself).

I’m hoping that, at the end of all of this microscopic self-reflection, that I arrive at some answers for myself and. maybe more importantly, for you the reader. I have some ideas about that. I kind of need to, otherwise this story will kind of suck.

-Patrick

Song Of The Day:

“The Pot” by TOOL

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