Volcano

Everyone can get angry. Eight till eighty. Get along with anyone long enough and you will come across a volcanic moment. 

One of my exemplary colleagues never loses patience with his patients, and for heaven's sake, exploded few days ago at a wedding banquet. That's after the waitress poured the salad dish on his girlfriend's dress. You could cook a six-pack of eggs next to his burning face. Quite right so? 

However, many of his friends find it unbelievable as if that's the sight of a volcano in Hong Kong instead of Indonesia. This, I fear, is as unusual as a saint using obscene language in their minds. That raises a point worth clarifying: that showing anger is not a sin.

As I learn to teach my daughter to feel okay with anger, I get to appreciate that anger is indeed one toolkit of emotion - and an essential energy source. And just to stretch the mystery of anger a little bit further, it's a birthright. 

There's a line from Aristotle that's an old favourite of mine: "to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way."