On Anger & Fear

On Anger & Fear

There are two states that rule over mankind more than any others: Anger & Fear. They are not abstract. They are not something you learn from until long after they’ve passed. They are chemical reactions inside us, real electric currents. They leave real marks in our blood and at any moment they can knock any one of us off our feet.

The question is not whether you will feel them. You will. The question is whether you can learn to control them. If you want to control them you can. You do have to want to however.

Fear: The world gone to shit, medicine supply being cut, War… Pick your poison.

Fear itself is something you should try and not be afraid of. It is mankind’s oldest companion. It kept our ancestors alive when a shadow moved in the grass or when the crack of a branch meant a predator was nearby. Fear sharpens the senses, floods the muscles with readiness, and forces every ounce of attention onto the threat. Fear makes people button up and get serious.

Ill tell you something I learned watching my dad and I work together. He knows a poverty he never let me know. He has helped me every step of the way succeed. I realized I could sprint or run a marathon when it came to pushing myself but I could never keep up with my dad. My dad has always driven himself so hard you could say he sprints the marathon… I thought it was because he wanted it more than I did but as I grew up I realized the difference between us was actually that I was running towards something ive always wanted but never had, and My dad was running from the poverty of his childhood that he never wanted. Fear can drive you to do extraordinary things. Fear is how the mom lifts the car off her kid.

You know the Tommy Lee Jones bit off Men in Black about being strong enough, if you can harness fear it is useful if you are strong enough. But when fear ceases to be lightning in a bottle and becomes a storm people have a tendency to curl up into a ball and let time pass them by while they hide a way in their homes. People stop looking forward to tomorrow. It has the power to motivate you and the power to hold you down. What will you do with it?

Anger: The politician who lied to you, the doctor who denied you, everyone for anything.

If fear implodes the world to the size of a bedroom, anger explodes it. Anger makes people feel larger than they are. Their chest puff up, they scream and yell, then they beat the hell out of each other or worse. It intoxicates because it feels like power but usually ends with the real power grinding their knee into your back or worse.

Anger lies to a person and has a way of turning honest people dishonest. It blinds people to the consequences of their actions which typically come right after. It consumes everyone who doesn’t get it in hand. A brief flash of anger can steady your hand in a fight if you focus, but nine times out of ten it ultimately consumes people. This is why I personally try and forgive everyone of everything. I judge myself off how quick I am to forgive. I like to think I’m getting better.

There is an Osage story of two brothers who fought after a hunt. One felt cheated of his share of meat and struck the other in rage. His blow not only wounded his brother but dishonored his family. The elders declared: “The fire you carry is not only your own it burns us all.” From then on, anger was taught as fire: sacred when used to cook and forge, ruinous when it leapt beyond the hearth.

Jesus himself burned with anger when he saw the money changers profaning the temple. Yet even in his fury, he did not lose himself to violence. He overturned tables, yes, but his words carried more fire than his hands: “My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make it a den of thieves.” Anger, when rightly aimed and bound to truth, became correction instead of corruption. Righteous indignation.

Definition Transmutation: The deliberate act of changing a raw, destructive impulse into a refined, useful force. It is not suppression or denial, but conversion — burning away what corrupts and drawing out what strengthens.

Principle:

Fear → Vigilance

Anger → Resolve

Pain → Strength

Suffering → Character

Both anger and fear are meant to be temporary states, not things to be made at home inside you. To live in either too long is to invite ruin. Fear not handled by you eats away at your courage until only hesitation remains. Anger devours patience until only destruction is possible. My mother was kind and loving growing up and my dad was tough and strong.

I wouldn’t be who I am without them and I wouldn’t be alive without them. They taught me everything they could and still do. That being said my mother taught me the greatest lesson that ultimately changed my life. She said Kenneth Be a duck. She said ducks don’t care if it’s raining they just let the water roll off their backs. Be a duck. Let everything roll off your back. It’s How I sat the chip I had been carrying around most my life down. I just let it roll off and then I walk past it. I accept what lands in front of me and I walk past it. Even if its the devil himself that has come down on me.

If you curl up in a ball or lash out and hurt people you are wasting the energy your conscience and character have built up in you and FORESAKING your purpose. You’re sacrificing yourself in spite of your or others situations to satisfy your emotions to the detriment of all. At that point you are as hot as a star burning out.

Fear when refined becomes vigilance. The Osage hunter who feels fear but keeps moving becomes watchful without being paralyzed, cautious without being cowardly. His senses remain sharp, but his spirit is not mastered by emotions.

Anger when refined becomes resolve. The warrior who feels fury but holds his hand becomes enduring, patient, and strong. His fire does not consume others but rather it warms, it forges, it fuels. And he leads them.

Marcus Aurelius wrote a book I love called Meditations not as philosophy for others but as discipline for himself… That turned into philosophy for others. He was a man wrestling with fear and anger in the solitude of command over himself. Christ carried his cross without anger at his executioners and without fear of death, embodying the highest transmutation: suffering turned into redemption.

There are good examples of this throughout history. My favorite is Jesus. Not judging anyone who has a different favorite saying I’m just saying JC is my bro.

The Call

The world is full of people living as slaves to fear and anger. Some shrink from life, some rage against it. Both believe they are helpless, and some are very dangerous.

But you are not helpless and don’t have to make yourself dangerous either. You were made in the image of God. That means you were given a will, a switch that can be thrown. You can choose whether you let your emotions master you, or whether you will master them.

Fear and anger will come but what matters is what you do once they arrive.

Do you hide? Do you lash out? Or do you take hold of yourself, set your emotions aside, and tap into them at your will like a battery.

The Osage sought balance. The Stoics sought mastery. Christ demanded forgiveness. All three point to the same truth: Anger and fear are raw material. They are not the shape of a man only the clay from which he chooses to be formed. What you mold yourself into is up to you.

And that choice is the difference between wasting your life, or living it with intention.

Let everything outside of you happen independent of you and focus on getting yourself as healthy and mobile as possible so you can grow plants. Your world and everyone around you will be better off for it. Leave vengeance for the God and if it’s not God looking for vengeance it’s not to fear.