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Comment by naasking | Hacker News Reader

> I’m not sure why people have come to the conclusion that certain emotions must be entirely avoided

I don't think "avoided" is the right term for these teachings, but the emotion itself is generally not fruitful, particularly since it urges you to dwell on it. Injustice should be addressed because it's unjust, not because you're angry at the injustice. What does the anger add to the equation? Maybe motivation? Maybe it's important to explore why the injustice by itself is not sufficiently motivating.

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> What does the anger add to the equation? Maybe motivation?

Anger draws attention toward what’s important - for both ourselves and others. It says “hey! Something isn’t right here, and letting it slide wouldn’t feel right!”. It is a constant voice reminding you what you love and what you would sacrifice for that love.

There’s a lot of talk in certain communities about boundary setting. But I see boundaries as a natural part of the domain of anger. Boundaries are only hard to set if you either don’t hear your own anger internally, or don’t let that anger be expressed into the world.

It sounds like you're saying people need anger when they haven't spent time reflecting on what's important in life. If you already know what's important because you've done that reflection, of what use is the anger?

Is that a real thing, that people discover that they know everything there is to know about themselves and their desires, and they’re just “done”? I’m turning 40 soon, and I feel like I have more unanswered questions about myself with each passing year. It feels like life is constantly passing me new situations to navigate. My anger is often the first part of me to notice when I’m missing something important.

Even if you know what matters to you, anger can still be a wonderful tool to communicate your desires and intentions to others. If a homeless person starts creeping on to my partner in the street, I’d almost certainly reach for anger when I tell them that they need to cut that out. It’s a powerful, direct way to speak straight from my lizard brain to theirs. Seems ridiculous to take that tool out of your toolbox.

As with most things in life, there's an appropriate balance somewhere. People tend to say anger = bad because we have mostly experienced inappropriate anger on one extreme and have found that it isn't healthy for you.

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