June 21, 2017

My, but aren’t we human beings difficult creatures? And aren’t we just filled with complaints? If it’s not too cold outside, it’s too hot. If it’s not too dry, why, then it’s too wet. We go from “I wish the air would move a little”, to “Oh dear Lord, that wind is going to sweep me away!”

Sometimes I wonder if our complaints about the weather are made because it gives us an outlet to bitch. You have to admit, that is one thing you can grumble about and that really, no one individual can feel they’re the target of your vitriol. If your nearest and dearest complain about the weather, well, that has nothing to do with you, does it? You can tell them to have at it without a care.

I think we need to complain, and I believe it’s a way for us to unleash our aggression. Ideally, that’s one of the benefits of the sports we put our young boys and girls into. Oh, sure, I’ve heard all the opinions about building team work, learning fair play, self discipline, and getting exercise. As a member of society who really wants society to work, I can agree with all those benefits. But it is essential for us, as we grow, to learn how to get rid of that aggression.

The problems arise, when we fail to remember one salient point about humanity. For all that we’re intellectual and sentient beings, for all that we consider ourselves civilized, we are also a part of the natural world. We’re animals, with animal instincts, and not all of those instincts, thanks to our origins, are refined or even polite.

I firmly believe if we do not give our young boys and girls, men and women, sufficient outlets for their natural animal-based aggression as they grow, we harm them, sometimes irreparably. In my opinion, aggression repressed is not aggression destroyed—it’s merely aggression delayed.

There are parallels between the natural world and people living in society because despite our best efforts to be civilized, despite our best efforts to believe we are above the natural world. I believe that when humans are forced from a young age to tamp down their natural aggression, it never goes away, it truly is simply delayed. Delaying aggression only builds pressure within. Eventually, pressure suppressed long enough is a pressure relieved by a cataclysmic explosion. We see this in nature, and we see this in us.

Just ask the folks living around Mount St. Helens. Or look at the people who are guilty of road rage incidents. Or, that very modern-day phrase, people known for “going postal”.

When I was a kid—and sorry, the older I become, the more I turn into one of those old-timey kind of folks always saying that, but I digress. When I was a kid, there would be fights in the school yard. Teachers would pull kids apart after a few punches were exchanged, and, (this is important) aggression expelled. If the cause was severe, there would be a meeting in the principal’s office, but otherwise, it was just a school yard fight. Sure as hell, no police would called, and no one stuck labels on anyone else for these childhood fisticuffs.

I understand the movement toward all the efforts to stop aggression (not talking about bullying here, that’s something else altogether), I understand the motive is to stem violence. But what we have to do is channel that need to blow, that need, yes, for violence, into something that uses the energy and emotions that combine to create that aggression in the first place.

I believe that this is a need as basic to humanity as food, water and air. I really believe that. I also believe we can ensure our kids learn to recognize it and then to relieve it in a healthy manner.

Simply telling kids it’s wrong to feel that way isn’t good enough, and it’s not the way to go.

Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury