An analysis of anger

Like most others, I get angry, furious, vengeful etc. As a kid, I was always known to have been endowed with an excess these the emotions. They blamed it on some kind of inheritance of traits. But post adolescence, I have learned to manage rage very well. Honestly, now I am proud of how well I can control anger. I thought I will put down my basic understanding of anger and tenets of my anger management strategy.

The change started when I first read about anger, the nature and causes of it. It was an article on the internet (I'm unable to find it now though). From what I remember, there were 3 types of anger. I shall call them Internal-A, Internal-B & External.

Internal-A: This is the long lead time type of anger and can sometimes be confused with your personality type or mental outlook. The cause of this anger is internal and the anger takes a long time to build up. The outwards symptoms are tough to identify and this type of anger rarely does produce fits of rage. Very often, this type of anger begins during the developmental phase of one's personality (sometimes even during childhood) when the person starts to harbor ill-feelings towards specific aspects of his circumstances, surroundings or upbringing. The specific cause of the ill-feeling is not external but is the incapability of the person to come to terms with the perceived external stimulus for anger. The usual examples are anger and hatred towards rich people, anger at parents for their behavior type etc. Such feelings once developed, continue to linger with time and are hard to let go off.

Internal-B: This is a more common anger type which is sporadic and short lived. This can be triggered by internal reactions to external stimuli. External stimuli which are not anger causing. Let's say this is very expectation dependent. Anger caused by jealousy, remorse, guilt etc. fall into this category. This type of anger can affect a wide range of personality types. A few might take this anger very seriously (or to put it correctly - a few will be affected very badly by this type of anger) Reversing this anger is usually easy.

External: As the name suggests, this type of anger is caused entirely by external factors. These are external factors that specifically stoke anger in the psyche. This type of anger is most common and something which all animal species exhibit. External anger is driven by the mind's survival instinct. When someone hits you, you get angry and hit back. This anger is healthy and I would say 'right'. This anger is difficult to control, and in my opinion is wrong to try and control. It is supposed to be a natural reaction to external stimuli.

What I have found is that anger is very often a mixture of the three types. The pre-existence of one type of anger enhances the effect of the other. e.g. I've been feeling very angry at myself for driving carelessly thereby resulting in a scratch on my new car (can be classified Internal-B) Then this guy at the traffic signal bumps his car into the back of my car. I lose it completely (External anger enhanced by Internal-B).

Anger type Internal-A is very a existential angst type of thing. At a basic level, it can be overcome by logic and acceptance of life as it was and it is. If you've always been obese and hence hate slime people, relax. Give your genes their due. Being obese might be the right thing for you. At a more complicated level, Internal-A anger might need medical attention. Chronic cases of hatred, ill-feeling might lead to pathological depression warranting psychiatric care. But extreme cases aside, Internal-A can be overcome by right thinking.

Anger type Internal-B is the most unwanted type of anger. I personally find it the silliest and most useless type of anger. It is this type of anger that I have almost completely quashed from my mind. I often tell myself that it is I who lose when I'm angry for there is nothing to gain from this anger type. You never scare anyone, never make a point, never get someone to do things for you. I try and ensure that I never develop Internal-B anger. And believe me, it is easy once you realize that it serves no useful purpose.

External anger is good and necessary anger. The only challenge is to use it in a controlled and careful manner. External anger follows the pattern of diminishing marginal returns. Hence it is important to understand where you are on the curve and what the slope is. I rarely try and control external anger. The most I do is to examine where there's marginal benefit in continuing or increasing my anger levels.

All said and done, the most important step towards anger management is to understand which anger type one is experiencing and delve into the actual cause of the anger. Once there, one can use the skill of logic and cost-benefit analysis.

The anatomy of failure

I have been wanting to write about this for a long time. This one is in the series of posts of self-reflection. By putting down whatever I do here, I hope to change and improve.

What is failure? What constitutes it? Failure is a condition of under-achievement: a feeling of not having done what you intended to or wanted to. I think wanting to do something and not being able to do is a better definition rather than intending to do something and not being able to do so.

There can be many reasons why people fail. The obvious one is that the goal they set for themselves is far beyond what they are capable of. This is failure by design. The system is structured for failure. You cannot be born in India and hope to be the President of the United States.

Failure by design is caused by bad judgements of goals and expectations. Such types of failures can be corrected by realigning goals and wants - the familiar expectation setting. Some people might be of the type who purposely set stretched, unattainable goals for themselves. This is a good strategy for people who know how to deal with it.

The other and more important type of failure is failure by choice. Some people just choose to fail. It is not because of the goals being stretched or their skills being inadequate. It is this nature of failure I personally want to avoid. Currently, there is an overwhelming feeling inside me that I will end up failing because I choose to fail. And the choice is not something I make consciously.

Why does this happen? I think the primary reason is a lack of confidence. It is a feeling inside which says 'success is not for me... I am meant to fail.' It is hard not to succumb to such a feeling when it is strong and sub-conscious. I am not saying that I have succumbed completely; but every now and then, I do believe (and believe very strongly) that success is not for me.

The whole proposition is very silly given that there is no basis for such a feeling. This is the exact logical way I am taking to fight my way out. If there are tendencies which my mind can take for an uncertain event, I might as well tend towards believing in success rather than in failure.

But believing in failure is the very essence of pessimism. It is something that (unfortunately) is a part of me.

Line of credit and the milkman

I got back to Mumbai after weeks outside. Thankfully the house was in order except for a bit of dust around. There wasn't much to eat apart from almonds, walnuts and some old boxes of sweets. It is a bit of a struggle without having food handily available. I am now completely dependent on my social network; someone has to suggest meeting up, someone has to suggest that the meeting up happen over food etc.

When I started writing on this blog, I had two main objectives: a) getting used to writing and writing well so that I may someday use these skills to write a book or something worthwhile, b) to 'educate' the world through my ideas and observations. The second one was a bit of a stretch. But at times I do certainly feel that people out there really aren't very keen observers. There are some patterns of thought and reason which everyone resorts to.

A system of thought can be legacy; something that is passed down through generations and is a part of one's culture. But logic? Logic cannot be something that is passed down. Logic has absolute existence. The existence of logic is almost tautological. It simply cannot not-exist.

People have very skewed notions of what is logical. The human mind is to blame for this. For all the talk about human beings being intelligent, there is still a long way to go. We are no where close to being objective in our thoughts and analysis.

Being non-objective is necessary and important. If as a race, we weren't non-objective, we wouldn't have poetry, differing opinions, ideologies, etc. But it is important for people to be objective where necessary. I would say necessary is not the right word. Humans can survive without being objective at all; but being so makes life a touch easier. What do I mean by being objective?

Before delving into that, I want to get one thing out of the way. I hadn't paid the milkman for milk I bought in the month of January. The outstanding amount was some 520 Rupees. So last night I heard the bell ring at an unearthly hour: some 10:30 odd. It was him demanding his money. How did he know that I get scared in the night, easily, alone? The matter is now sorted; I paid him the money this morning.

When you are objective, your thoughts are uncoloured by feelings. You examine evidence for what it is and your logic is absolute, singular and not coloured by what your culture or upbringing has taught you. You maintain hypotheses to be hypotheses till the point there is credible and objective evidence.

There are so many instances in life where I see people rationalizing non-objectively. These people also claim that their rationalization is logical and objective. This is because their system of logic and reason in non-objective. Or rather the hypotheses on which their system of logic rests haven't been tested enough.

Another pet peeve of mine is what I want to term 'perceptual knowledge'. Simply put this is like saying "I know something; I cannot share it with you. You will have to realize it for yourself" (sounds familiar, doesn't it?) I think perceptual knowledge has some basic flaws. Knowledge by definition (my definition at least) cannot be perception based. Knowledge has to exist outside the mind for it to be knowledge. Perceptions are mere perceptions and there is no credible way to ascertain their truth. Or even better, the truth value of a perception is something that doesn't make sense.

The other major flaw is that perceptions by nature are products of the human mind. And the human mind is not objective. Putting it in another way, perceptions are mere chemical balances in the human nervous systems. This chemical balance needn't be driven by knowledge.

A Renaissance?

I am perhaps in the laziest phase of my life. I sleep for about 9 hours a day (while holding on to a job which pays me quite a lot). I wake up just in time for work. I do not exercise and have no controls on what/how much I eat.

All this makes me feel a bit unsettled. I haven't been like this in life too many times before. There might have been the odd week or two where I've gladly chosen to be a potato. But this time, its been more than a couple of months since I was active.

A few things have changed for the better though. I get lots of sleep; deep sleep. I no longer suffer from the bouts of being half-asleep and things like that. My anxiety levels have reduced, I am not as jittery or fretful as I most times am.

But I need to change. The remorse about 'wasting' my time is hitting me hard these days. I really can do so much with the amount of leisure I get. Technically speaking, there is nothing that stops me from making better use of my time. It is just an efficiency problem.

A possible cause for this condition is that I am goal less now. I really am just going with the flow of life and so far, I have been contented with where it has taken me. To change this approach towards life, I need to think hard on multiple things.

Today, I had a project performance review meeting with my boss. And I was surprised with the ratings I got. I thought I had done poorly but in the end, the feedback wasn't that bad after all. This gave me a good feeling and a stronger sense of belief in my abilities.

During that discussion, I also realized how I have stopped being diligent. As I previously mentioned, I have started taking things lightly.

I need to think myself out of this and develop a strong work ethic. This 'Renaissance' might be a bit of going back to the drawing board and start planning things.

As a start, I am determined to make good use of this three day weekend. I have promised to read a book cover to cover - Orhan Pamuk's 'Istanbul' which I purchased today. Outside that, I also want to develop an plan, a set of specific things I will start doing in order to change my ways.

My investigation into the nature of true statements

Off late, I have been trying hard to understand the nature of knowledge and belief. Knowledge to me is a higher idea than belief. Knowledge is something that is true whereas beliefs needn't be. But this differentiation isn't as simple as one would expect; because claiming that something is 'true' is not an elementary task.

Perhaps understanding the nature of 'truth' is a good starting point. Once we know what 'truth' is, then we will have a clear way to differentiate between 'beliefs' that are 'knowledge' and 'beliefs' that are merely beliefs.

There are many tests for truth; or the criteria of truth. The primary and most relevant criteria are objectivity, and consistency. I wish to discuss consistency first; objectivity deserves a longer, more detailed discussion.

By consistency, I mean that a true statement should be be consistent with everything else that is accepted as true. This is a very basic condition; if a statement is true but it contradicts another truth then one of two things: the statement is not true or the earlier statement which was accepted as being true is not entirely so.

This is perhaps how science and human knowledge grows: by testing the consistency of propositions with the accepted truth. A classic example is the idea that the world is flat. This was considered a true statement until somebody's claim which was inconsistent with this, started getting attention.

The second and tougher criterion is that of objectivity. The criterion of objectivity requires that a true statement stands alone without dependence of opinions and feelings. An objective truth should be external to the mind; for the mind's lens is a subjective apparatus.

Once we bring in objectivity into the picture, our sample of possible true statements shrinks alarmingly. For example, Adam tells Eve. "Shem tells me that it is a very hot day today in Canaan. Is it true?" If objectivity is a criterion for truth and the word 'hot' is as understood as it currently is, Eve can only reply "The temperature today in Canaan was 40 degree Celsius".

Shem's opinion about the weather would have been true if our system of communication had defined 'hot' has 'a condition where the temperature is greater than 39 degree Celsius' or something like that. But as we use it, the word hot is an opinion, a judgement of a condition.

This brings me to the next step: the difference between factual statements and judgements. A fact is an objective statement (hence external to the mind) that need not necessarily be true when stated or proposed. In a way, a fact is a true statement whose consistency hasn't been tested yet. And by definition, a judgement can never be a true statement.

The statement 'this colour is blue' can be true under the assumption that that blue is understood to be a colour that corresponds to a certain wavelength of light. What if Adam tells Eve. "the water is blue in colour"? Is this a factual statement?

This statement might have been termed factual. But one fine day someone identified colour blindness as a possible human condition. Given this possibility, Adam's statement cannot be factual in the strict sense. Adam's perception of colour is something that is still subjective. If Adam said "the wavelength of light reflected by the water is xx Angstrom", this can be called a factual statement (assuming that Adam has the standard equipment to measure such details accurately and he makes this statement after the measurement).

Is the act of measurement objective? It certainly can be. Assume a machine which just correctly reads the light and displays the wavelength on a screen. Adam can just read off this screen and make a statement on the wavelength of the light. This statement by Adam is no doubt factual; but its truth will depend on Adam's ability to read correctly.

There are a lot of things I want to discuss regarding the consistency of true statements. I shall get to that some other time.

New beginnings

It is past eleven on a Sunday night and I am still up working on something. This time, my week begins early. I think working Sunday night is a good way to beat Monday blues.

As I was reading slide after slide, the idea suddenly came upon me that I should re-start blogging. Mind you, I have done this a half a dozen times. But for once, I got the blog address I was looking for in the first attempt. I do not like to claim myself to be a believer in superstition (I'm supposed to be a member of the Brights Society) But this time, maybe it just felt good to get the blog address of your choice.

I do not have a direction for this blog as of now. And I would be uncomfortable if I did have one in mind. I think direction stifles creativity. It is also that this early into this blog, I wouldn't want to take call on what I should write about. Something might come up as I progress.

Today, the world celebrates Valentine's day. I did too but that's besides the point. Celebrating Valentine's day is by no means universal. There are a few pre-requisites for it - love (obviously), people, freedom, smart marketers (yes, that is increasingly becoming true).

Among the things I listed, let me pick on freedom. You need a certain degree of freedom to celebrate it. The lack of freedom doesn't preclude Valentine's day but it certainly jeopardizes attempts to celebrate it.

There is an interesting episode of how a certain person chose this day to show hatred against someone, something on this day. For this certain person, someone and something, this day would denote a day of hatred. The day when the hatred began - to be precise. Hatred is as strong as love, and even in this case it outlived one of the people involved.

In many places in the world, there are some things which neither money nor MasterCard can buy.