Through my recent adventures in scientifically based psychological
introspection, it has come to my attention that there are four basic
ways of coping with the very natural and valid emotion of "anger".

 These are: Agressively, Passive-Agressively, Passively, and Assertively.

 The only healthy way to cope with anger is through assertion.

 To clarify this, I have come up with the following example.

 A late-20-something person returns to college, having flunked out of
at least four colleges in his past. He is enthusiastic about beginning
college again, and shows up to his first class of the year one half
hour early. There are several early birds already sitting in the class,
including a hung-over frat boy.

 Subconsciously picking up on the potential for weakness in an older student
in a freshman class, the frat boy walks up to our protagonist, and begins
to provoke him by kicking his chair repeatedly. Our protagonist responds
in one of four basic ways.

 o Agression:

 REACTION ONE: the George W. Bush neo-conservative republican mechanism

 Our protagonist stands up and proceeds to kick the frat boy's ass.
A few students cheer. The frat boy ends up in the hospital, and our
protagonist ends up with nothing more than a few missing teeth. He
can afford to get implants.

 Six years later (after waiting for his suspension to elapse), our
protagonist graduates from college with both an undergraduate degree
and a criminal record.

 While it may have seemed that our protagonist held a decisive victory
in the short term, time has proven that in the end, the frat boy is
the undisputable victor.

 Our protagonist was probably assaulted (spanked, slapped, whipped, beaten)
by his parents when he was growing up when he got into trouble. This
wired his brain to associate violence with anger, and taught him by
example that it is OK to be violent when provoked, even if one is not
in any real and imminent physical danger.

 REACTION TWO: The kid who tortures small animals in his basement

 Our protagonist takes the rest of the day of from college. It's just
the first day anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

 He goes home and spends a little while "venting", by punching a punching
bag. He thinks this is a very healthy way to cope with his anger, since
he is not hurting another living thing, and he is doing it in private.

 This is probably the worst possible response.

 By punching his punching bag as a way to cope with anger (as opposed to
a fun way to let out more general human agression and get some good
exercise), he is reinforcing his brain's violence/anger association.

 By doing it in private and with no consequences aside from a few
callouses on his knuckles, he ensures that he will never have a reason
to begin the monumentously difficult task of radically changing his
behavior until his brain is re-wired.

 There is nothing "wrong" or "bad" about feeling anger. Anger, like
all human emotions, is natural, and frankly, unavoidable, as long
as one remains an organic being in this imperfect universe.

 Anger in particular is not an end in and of itself, but rather it is
a sympton of something else. It is a signal sent to our conscious mind,
like a sensation of pain, cold, hunger, etc., to let us know that there
is a matter out there which simply needs some conscious attention.

 Releasing the anger through punching a punching bag, chopping wood,
or even riding a bike, is treating the sympton "anger" instead of the
cause "half drunk frat boy".

 Another example of why this is an unhealthy response would be this:

 Your brain sends you a different signal besides anger, for instance,
hunger. Your brain sends you the hunger signal because it needs nutrition
(protein, vitamins, etc.). You are annoyed by this unpleasant signal.
You have work to do. You are busy. You grab a Milky Way and eat it in
10 seconds. You believe you have fixed the problem; you are no longer
receiving that pesky hunger signal. Unfortunately, you have left your
body, your most important ally in this physical world, without the
nutrition that it needs. Aside from the brief burst of energy you feel
as your pancreas go into shock and begin to squirt insulin into your
blood stream, triggering your fat cells to store fat and working on
a good case of the Type 2 Diabetes, you end up functioning less
effectively for the rest of your day.

 o Passive agression, or the "we all know one" coping mechanism

Our protagonist remains still, but hunches over a bit and begins to cry.
He tells the frat boy and the class about his childhood traumas, his past
failures in college, and how he just wants to be loved. He says that being
taunted by ignorant drunk frat boys is just his destiny, and he accepts it.
He encourages the frat boy to keep kicking his chair, and suggests perhaps
kicking him in the head as well, if it will make him feel better. He
admonishes the frat boy to just make sure he doesn't get any blood on his
expensive sneakers.

 Several fellow students become enraged and tell the frat boy off. The frat
boy sits back down and ponders his sexual and alcoholic conquests for the
evening.

 Our protagonist gets out of danger, but loses the respect of his peers, and
loses respect for himself. He continues this pattern throughout his years
in college. He gets back into drugs such as marijuana and alcohol to dull
the emptiness in his heart and alleviate his anxiety. He eventually
graduates, but takes a relatively low paying job. He takes a co-dependent
marriage, and raises co-dependent children. He goes on to spend a
considerable amount of his salary on unhealthy drugs, and passes his
unhealthy coping mechanisms on to his offspring, who in turn become
alcoholics. One of them works it out in therapy, and one of them gets
in a car accident while driving drunk and dies to due complications
related to cirrhosis.

 o Passivity, or the "Robert M. King" coping mechanism

 Our protagonist says nothing. He stands up. He walks past the frat boy.
He walks out the door. He walks to his car. He starts it. He drives home.
He never returns to college again.

 He revels in how bad the frat boy must feel that he has abandoned his
dream.

 Aside from having his behavior reinforced - the frat boy couldn't care less
and forgets the incident almost immediately. Our protagonist spends weeks
reveling in how great it is that he doesn't take shit from anyone, and how
bad the frat boy must still feel.

 Our protagonist continues his cycle of keeping his emotions inside,
believing them to be "invalid". Invalidating his emotions allows him to
perform well in the beginnings of new jobs, as his logical mind gets all
the attention.

 He continues down a path of drug abuse (relatively harmless drugs
such as marijuana, highly addictive drugs such as heroin, and both highly
addictive AND organ damaging drugs such as alcohol), failed relationships,
lost jobs, and legal troubles, until his ultimate premature, hideous,
violent, painful, bloody, ugly, ugly death.

 He defecates at the moment of death, grossing the only one who was standing
beside him, a random CNA, out.

 She says, "Yuck".

 o Assertively, or the "Donald Trump" response

 o Again, the ONLY HEALTHY ANGER COPING RESPONSE

 Our protagonist stands up from his chair. He breathes. He validates his
feeling of anger, letting it wash over him. Realizing that his emotional
mind is getting all the attention, he simply focuses his attention on
his logical mind. He puts it into perspective and calms down, and even
ends up partially amused.

 He faces the half drunk frat boy.

 He tells the frat boy that this is not high school, and that he is acting
like a spoiled child. He notes that he paid good money to be here, not
getting the free ride from his parents that the drunk frat boy is. He tells
him that if he doesn't find another outlet for his subconscious sense of
inadequacy, he will proceed directly to the Dean's office and report
this annoying behavior. He says that he is too old and wise to fuck
around anymore.

 The frat boy sits down and ponders his sexual and alcoholic conquests for
the evening. He couldn't care less.





 Adam Gerard