A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song. ~Maya Angelou

After one too many people unleashed torrents of hatred, anger, bluster and confusion at me (and I dutifully picked it up,) it occurred to me that we are all vessels, trained to pick up and carry those feelings on as our own.

 

We've heard demonstratory explanations about chains of anger: Big business man is angry because of thing, like, maybe his mistress has AIDS or something so he can't have sex with her, so he takes his anger out on his employee Joe Schmoe. Joe Schmoe, without realizing why he's suddenly enraged beyond what is appropriate (maybe because Mr. No-Mistress-Sex Bossman told him to have Important Paper With Year's Worth Of Work on his desk by end of the day) he goes home and angers his wife (or to be fair, his S.O.) with anger, who in turn takes it out on their adopted child (I like to think that my analogy-family is progressive) Charlie. Charlie turns around and kicks the family's gerbil while it's inside the gerbil ball, causing it to ricochet around the room, splattering the inside of the ball with gerbil-puke.

 

Up until today, I've always focused on the person in the story receiving the anger. Charlie chose to be angry. Joe Schmoe took a split second to accept or decline the anger and he chose to accept it. Which, I honestly believe is a choice. But it's also a choice to pass it along, to infect others with it.

 

Momma Schmoe didn't have to yell at Charlie. Bossman didn't have to be angry and terse. That's the part I hadn't thought through in the same way. The bare mechanics are still choice and implementation. Not easy, if you think about it, but still obvious. But how easy has it been to reflexively say, but he didn't have to say/do/imply/yaddayadd what he said/did/implied/yaddayaddad to me without giving any thought to where we went with that umbrage.

 

I can be the vessel that receives the anger, but I can also choose to let it out before I interact with anyone else. It feels like a real solid thing inside of us and it's astonishing it can be manipulated into disappearing. These are feelings and choices that can be molded with the brain, from what feels impossible, possible. It takes practice and use.

 

I was angry because someone else was angry and I knowingly accepted that anger. I wrestled with that anger, realizing (not through any insight, but because of the nature of the business I'm in) it's all a long chain of events. But even beyond my job and my family, there are every day interactions that feed each other because as a race, we are so reactionary.