Why The Joy of Anger?

Hi. You don't know me, I don't know you.  the Joy of Anger is about being more fully human and living more fully with and through emotions. Words are inadequate for living and thriving, the mind alone is inadequate, eyeball to eyeball alone is inadequate. You will not understand what I am about to convey, not fully anyway.  I don't even understand it but that is due to the limitation of my mind and my life pattern. Here it is, the null hypothesis, the ground zero of my argument.  I've been all the way through by the way, from thesis to antithesis and then to synthesis, many times, over and over in fact.  Read what you want, take what you like, leave the rest behind. This is my idea.  I think it might save the planet but I really cannot and do not care that much about everything. I do have a huge amount of caring, too much in fact, I cry, I rage, I rant, I laugh. But I can only throw my emotions about as far as I can see and that is not very far these days.

The thesis:

Emotions exist in most humans, we exhibit emotions and react to events and emotions.

This is so for some evolutionary reason, some survival advantage.

The advantage must be that emotions help us get along better in small groups.

We get along with each other so we can cooperate more effectively.

If we cooperate more effectively we hunt and gather and prosper more.

And we create more copies of ourselves.

Evolution 101.

I submit:

1. that my understanding of evolution, human psychology and behavior is narrow, based on a bit of reading and my own life experiences, I am no expert in either my own emotions or the whole subject area but I advocate that we all can and must become experts in our own emotions
2. that the mechanics of emotion are mainly reactions to event, things happen and we emote
3. "good" or "positive" emotions are payoffs that make us want more, they reinforce good constructive group behavior like sharing, kindness, generosity (not emotions in and of themselves but behaviors that stimulate good feelings); you share your food and you feel happy
4. "bad" or "negative" emotions do the opposite, they inhibit or discourage negative group behavior. If you steal you should feel guilty, ashamed even.
5. that this is a built in behavioral feedback loop, a sort of internal moral compass
6. that most cultures abandoned, rejected, inhibited and suppressed emotions thousands of years ago because they are messy and a single central set of behavior rules is believed to be a more logical, clean powerful way to arrange human affairs.
7. That Stephen Harper is a direct result of this abandonment of emotion.
8. That most of the world's problems are correlated to this abandonment of emotion.
9. that we can and must elevate the importance of emotion in all elements of human affairs including in relationships, in court, in government, in business, in education, in religion, everywhere. Emotion must be on equal footing with the mind and the body. Otherwise our species is doomed.