“Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering.” – Yoda

A couple of things in my life have put me into a contemplative stance on the concept of strong emotion, and especially negative strong emotion. Besides thanking Cracked yet again for being wise and making me laugh, it’s helped me step back from something where I really feel nearly compulsed to reply to/address, but I’ve decided to not risk fanning fires. I’m not getting high on any thing these days, and like fun I’m going to start again with something as horrid as anger! That isn’t to say that anger is ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ either; it’s a normal, healthy emotion. It’s just when we get crack-hooked on it and go all shooting star on everyone…

I think about strong emotions as pertains to me often anyways. I’m rather high strung with a lot of should-be-treated-but-are-getting-ignored-by-the-medical-establishment anxiety problems, and generally live quite like this fine fellow here. It is far from ideal, and makes me hard to love; there is almost no safe way to make sure that I will not blow up in your face. I don’t mean to, and I don’t think my friends deserve that treatment, so I’m grateful that they work to be understanding. Not that I say this to excuse myself; by the same token, I bust my ass trying to not respond in an overblown and frantic manner. After all, a relationship should be built on respect, understanding and love, not abuse (if you think that abuse in a relationship is healthy or okay, please seek assistance! You deserve better, as do your loved ones! <3). So on that, I don’t spend a lot of time beating myself up about being ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’ – I’m broken a bit, sure, so are most of us. At least I’m honest enough to man up to it, ha ha.

Another reason that these things are on my mind is how easily controlled we let ourselves be when we become overwhelmed with emotion. I saw someone on Facebook this morning saying that they wanted to microchip their child. That there were more and bolder child molesters, and that was that. I had to point out how far that kind of fear could be exploited by mentioning the barring and vetting scheme that I’ve mentioned here before. I don’t know about you, but I think it’s totally reasonable to presume every single person near a child is a pedophile. /sarcasm Protecting children is important, true, but why is it okay to call yourself guilty to assuage the overblown fears of another? And you know, I even get why it’s so crazy here in the West – my generation had the concept of STRANGER DANGER! beaten into our little heads with a stick, and then all the terrorists, and ohgodwhereismyholeSAAAVEMEE! Fear makes us irrational. Fear makes us hateful. Fear makes us… exploitable.

Anyways, I think that, perhaps, The Onion says it best – stop and think for a few seconds, and you might just be surprised at how different your response is! Now, to take that advice myself, hee hee…

For you guys in the States – have a fabulous fourth. Don’t blow yourselves up (not that many do, thankfully!), don’t drink too much, and eat until you pop. *grins*

<3