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In my life, I've suffered 3 robbery attempts, and been stabbed twice. Two times before I turned 17, while I was still living in Russia :-\

I was vehemently opposed to my father's attempts to make me carry a weapon since I was 14. I changed my mind after being stabbed for a second time, much more badly (and that happened the same year.)

First time, I was attacked by a gang of homeless orphaned children. It was like that: I just noticed them giving off some creepy sense of malice in their looks as I passed them on the street, and the very moment they left my field of vision I hear loud "knock" "knock" and feel being pushed from behind.

Somehow, I sent few of them flying within mere split seconds, despite never being into combat sports, nor being strong for my age. The next thing I remember was me running like I never ran before in my life.

The second time it happened, it was almost like in a movie. Being descended upon by 3 or possibly 4 huge dudes, all looking like "how proper gangsters look." I only remember them appearing out of the blue, being taken into chokehold from behind. But that time, I had a 40cm electrician screwdriver with me...

Whatever happened next, I will not speak until my deathbed, but that day my anger very likely saved me my life.

After my recovery (still from first attack, I was not injured in the second,) and finishing school exams, I applied for a student exchange programme in Singapore, and finally got the fuck out of that country at last.

I still thank god for making anger be. Anger and fury can some times be almost beautiful, turning ecstatic.

Wow where in Russia was this?

Blagoveshchensk and Vladivostok

You stayed in Singapore?

For 2.5 years as an exchange student.

> we tend to actually lose agency while angry, but internally I think we actually believe we have dramatically increased agency in the moment

I mean, we do have increased agency, in a certain sense: we are far better at doing (or, at least, motivating ourselves to do, and keeping our executive functioning pointed toward doing without distractions) the things that "we" want to do when angry.

It's just that both the things "we" want when angry (our preferences), and the mechanisms "we" use to achieve those goals, aren't the same preferences and mechanisms we'd use normally. They're a subset, the parts of you that don't require any conscious deliberation to enact. Whatever parts of "you" are entirely implemented by conscious thought, those parts are temporarily excluded from the definition of the agent "you" when "you" are angry.

In the "Elephant and Rider" metaphor for thinking, when the rider steps off the elephant and lets the elephant run, the elephant becomes much better at doing elephant things. It isn't necessarily much better at doing "rider-and-elephant-as-system" things; it's probably worse at those. But if you need a pure-elephant solution to a problem, getting off the elephant can help.

In martial arts, for example, conscious deliberation is never desired. The rider is never as good at micromanaging the elephant's movements as the elephant is at moving itself. "You"—the rider—want to train "yourself"—the elephant—to move this way reflexively; such that, in a real fight, you can let loose the elephant, and the elephant can solve your problem.

Ive read some of the book "The Art of Empathy", in which the author describes anger as "the prideful sentry." I like this way of thinking about it.

Clearly, any emotion when taken to the extreme is bad, and anger is perhaps the most obvious example -- yet I would hesitate to call its existence useless, even in a modern context. Anger & pride both have functions as "alarm systems" for circumstances which would be detrimental to certain things we value.

EDIT: I now realize that your original comment was not presenting such a black-and-white view of the subject as I originally perceived. Keeping my comment above in tact for historical purposes

I agree. No emotion or sensation is 'useless', because they all serve to tell us about what's going on inside and around us. I suppose that's the key here. We can listen to anger and fear all day, but we don't have to connect that high-charge wire to whatever machine it's telling us to. It's really important to observe the feelings and not let it get out of control. It's also critical to understand why the feeling came, how it developed, and what it means about ourselves. I think those two parts are often ignored.

The same can even be said for attraction which can lead to crazy infatuation, or the desire to relax which can lead to chronically getting nothing done. Mostly these are very positive thoughts and feelings in moderation, so it's also difficult to observe and reconsider in the moment. Fear and anger are very important as well, but the product of both can be devastating when unregulated.

This is hard to teach to kids. I have kids, and one of them actually gets angry far too easily - maybe even more than I did as a kid. Trying to explain the idea of being responsible for what his anger leads to feels like a Sisyphean task at times. It's so important to me though to have them understand that ultimately, they decide how they react to what happens to them or around them. And of course the same applies to all those other feelings. People are complicated.

Chuck D. looked into that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expression_of_the_Emotions...

https://archive.org/details/expressionofemot1872darw/page/n4

Hard to teach kids? Can you rule out it being impossible for everyone, except for individual cases like yours where highly motivated circumstance intersect with opportunity to learn them?

In other words, you're talking about exploiting centuries of cross-disciplinary not always intuitive wisdom.

First, would anyone be able to arrive at these conclusions and how to efficiently implement them in time to help themselves?

If not, we require learning reading in school but not learning to read this stuff, so who would think to study it unless there was specific cultural awareness?

Last chance, lucky for you your dad will suggest it. Not so lucky though, almost anyone telling you to change your life in a direction you're not seeking will sound like a dumbass peddling koolaid.

Is the last nail in the coffin it's sometimes counterintuitive? Why should a person not think, sounds nice dumbass (temper trolling, I apologize), but you've got no way to prove it's going to on my non-sheep smart brain.

And you can't prove it really, with any certainty. Despite the irony that the smarter and less sheeplike s/he is the more successful they are likely to be with it (speculation).

Loved the root comment/anecdote though, one cynical point doesn't change that. It's probably a rare beast, a comment that could add value years from now - no shelf life, on a tech site even.

> It's really important to observe the feelings and not let it get out of control. It's also critical to understand why the feeling came, how it developed, and what it means about ourselves.

You just described Emotional intelligence, which I gained by practising Yoga, meditation and stoicism. I used to be neurotic and my anxieties ruled me. I didn't get angry often but when I did it was explosive. People were often surprised cause they never thought I could be like that. Three years ago, burnt out, feeling empty and seeking purpose, I quit working and began searching. Trust me when I say that I had no idea what I was searching for. I just needed to search for 'meaning' and purpose. It led me to yoga and meditation and my life began to change. I started to gain Emotional intelligence and better control of my nerves. It was like I was born again. My anger outbursts slowly disappead. I able to observe About a year after I began yoga and meditation, I got a copy of The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and I got even better. After 3 years I went back to work.

I practice yoga and meditation with my kid. It was hard at first, but I tried to make it fun for her. Now she enjoys it. I teach her about Emotional intelligence and read the daily Stoic with her when I can. She loves Epictetus :)

I've heard Brene Brown call anger a "catalytic" emotion. It's supposed to tell us when we've been wronged or something is harmful to us in the environment, but then it's then up to us to step back, evaluate the situation rationally, and figure out exactly what's wrong and what can we do to remove ourselves from the harmful situation. In other words, anger's supposed to be a spur to action: if you just sit their stewing, you are missing the point. And if you just impulsively react, you're heeding the anger but probably not taking the most effective course you could be.

> " Anger and fear both seem like tools for survival in a world most of us no longer live in."

i've come to settle on a mental model of fear being the driver of anger. when someone gets angry, a (perceived) threat typically underlies the anger. and anger is a way of overcoming conventional social norms to unleash energy to counter the threat.

sometimes the threat is simply to the ego of the angered person. this helps me understand my own anger, which can be confounding at times.

My model is that both fear and anger are forms of anxiety.

The anxiety is often in response to the difference in our expectations vs reality.

Anger seems to exist to attempt to coerce reality towards out expectations.

Fear seems to occur before we accept that our expectations cannot be met and so must be up dated.

I just listened to this podcast episode today: "Robert Sapolsky on the toxic intersection of poverty and stress" (https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/vox/the-ezra-klein-show/e/5...)

It is a fantastic deep-dive into our biology (stress), neurology (amygdala), poverty (status poverty, not financial) and much more

Anger is extremely useful - as are all other emotions. They are all motivators, impetus, etc. They get you going in a general direction which in many cases the outcome is what you desired when the impulse first hit you but it's only a general direction, there's always path to sate the desires that bubble up with minimal damage to things you care about.

Your emotions will always serve a purpose, you just have to control them and think about what you really want.

The corollary to how anger manifests itself in the one who is angry is how it's perceived to the one on the receiving end of the anger. I can't find the reference but I believe it was in Pinker's "The Blank Slate" where he discusses the effect, citing other research.

It boiled down to the fact that because an angry person is not in control of their actions the recipient's theory of mind about the angry person is effectively thrown out the window and thus one can't predict what the angry person might do. Consequently your best bet is to exit the situation as quickly as possible to minimize any risk to yourself or loved ones.

> "I've dealt with an ill temper my entire life, although not many people who know me would think so. As a kid I was bullied a lot (both of these are likely direct products of me having ADD), and I used to get in a lot of trouble because my reaction was to let my rage boil over and fight these bullies."

Look into Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. It comes with ADHD, but it can exist on its own or with other uncommon neurologies.

https://www.additudemag.com/rejection-sensitive-dysphoria-ad...

one of the life lessons that online games taught me was that when angry or otherwise highly emotional, stop playing and walk away until I am level headed again (no matter how much I think action is needed to fix something). Otherwise, I'll make a series of even more bad decisions.

Having the ability, and confidence, to dispassionately have discussions and ask questions while experiencing anger (or fear) is a very empowering life skill, and it takes practice.