Our Angry, Emotional Inner Selves

YOU'VE HEARD IF BEFORE, at least once. Some self assured ego maniac smugly announces "I hardly ever get mad, but when I do, watch out!". Translation: You don't wanna be around me when I get really angry, because I am so frightening, but, fortunately for you, it doesn't happen often, because I am such a model of virtue, and restraint. Translation: I want you to know what a powerful and imposing person I can be, when I choose to be that way... The usual proclamation of power, tempered by wisdom. The false images of ourselves we seek to project! The prize fighters stand nose to nose, glaring at each other, just before the violence. And of course we all know that whenever somebody proclaims emotional strength and restraint, its a bunch of nonsense, an illusion. Fact is, most of us walk around in a mildly irritated state on a regular basis, thinking with our emotions, making decisions through the fog of our petty annoyances. We all like to think ourselves powerful and virtuous, but really, we aren't. We are fearful, easily angered, petty, and incessantly concerned with the satisfaction of our immediate desires, to the exclusion of most else. Emotion permeates everything we do, even when we don't want it to, even when it shouldn't. Decisions vital to national security are made through the distorting lense of emotion. IN a snit, Thomas Jefferson once suspended all trade with both England and France, triggering an economic depression in America. In France, Jefferson dropped out of the Paris chess blub because, good as he thought he was, the French were much better chess players, and Jefferson did not like to lose. Heaven forbid that he should take advantage of an opportunity to improve his game! Thomas Jefferson, a man of pride and emotion who loved his own intellect, and didn't want to se it soiled by defeat in a board game. If Jefferson can succumb to his emotions, anyone can. America is a culture of Germanic stoicism, with an undercurrent of emotional turmoil, mostly anger, pulsating just beneath the surface. We digusise our emotions, are ashamed of them,tend to regard any display of them, especially warmth, as weakness. But they simply will not go away. Nor would we want them too. But wouldn't it be nice if we could be more honest about them, about their root causes and their impact on us, with others and especially with ourselves, and use them more productively, in a manner which does not impair our good judgment? Disguising our emotions, emotions themsleves, have been an effective evolutionary survival tool, and we need never abandon our best tools. But could we perhaps bring them up to date a bit, more in keeping with comtemporary circumstances? America is an angry place, as if the citizenry, frustrated by ceaseless toil without sufficient tangible reward, is always looking for a victim upon which to vent the aggression of frustration. Man will always be an emotional animal. May there come a time when emotional man and intellectual man are linked together in perfect, productive harmony. That might still be awhile.