African Proverbs – Anger And Madness Are Brothers
Tag Archives: anger
The Power Of Emotion
Emotion is a powerful thing, capable of changing everything for good or for bad. Both positive emotions and negative ones play important roles in our lives, but if the end point of a negative emotion brings hurt, it should be treated as evil. Having said that, I’ll go ahead and say that emotion is a control freak.
Emotion is a control freak.
Emotion controls things like who gets help from us and who goes empty-handed. It controls racism, determines who rules our countries and who gets kicked out. It tells who ends up as our friends and who turns into an arch enemy. It controls what kind of thing to wear, where we go, who we quarrel and fight with and who we laugh and rapport with. We go to war and fight till death and reconcile with our enemies. We vow to never forgive because we are hurt to the marrow. We make nuclear weapons and bomb an entire nation.
Imagine a world ruled by positive emotions.
Such a world would be full of good and loving people who love and stay loving. Who marry and stay married. Who share and treat everyone as equal. Black and white, yellow and green, purple and pink will be treated the same. Male and female, old and young won’t be an issue. Forgiveness would be a piece of cake cos everyone is an angel. Celebration of gain, as well as loss, become the order of the day – merry-making goes on and everyone walks the streets without a single worry. We stay happy whether we have it all or have nothing.
But…
In a world where things are bound to go wrong sometimes, we need a bit of negative emotion to balance human existence – to react when things go wrong in other to fix them.
Negative emotions can be very hurtful to us and others.
Anger, envy, jealousy, hate among others, can push us to the extreme. These are the normal human feelings if not put under control can make us lose our senses, we lose good reasoning and good judgement.
Anger breeds resentment, violence and hate breeds rejection/unfair treatment. We must work hard on these.
Negative emotion is hard to retain
It’s hard to bottle up negative emotions. It’s as hard as sitting on a hot seat and keeping calm. But it’s not impossible to sit on a hot seat when we are coolants.
Here is the good part; negative emotions like any kind of emotion, are not permanent feelings. They can disappear the same way they came, that’s why it must not be allowed to push us to do something bad before they vanish.
Emotions are prone to change. When we change our perceptions of things and others and handle our experiences with ourselves and the things/people around us well.
These Tips Might Help
- Know that negative emotions are unavoidable and temporal feelings, do not give them more room to grow and blow you up.
- Indulge in “feel good” or pleasant activities to relax and get yourself right back. Talk with a family or friend, take a walk and think about nature, read books that make you feel better.
- Do not go over things that trigger negative emotions repeatedly in your mind. Let them go. Do not allow all the negative past events to drag you down. Forget them.
- I will not tell you how powerful outdoor exercise can be. Find that out yourself.
Have a blessed week aheadđź’–
Insight – Anger
She walked along, bare-footed and the angry women that escorted her chanted a melancholic song.
She was not crying but tears that rolled down her cheeks dripped on her upper chest and were absorbed into the white wrapper tied around her body from chest to knee.
She admitted silently and blamed herself non-stop. But she knew it was all a mistake. She didn’t mean to send him to eternal life.
He was a very good husband and she loved him so much. She didn’t know what came over her. They were living happily before the terrible day.
It was a relatively dark day.
He had prepared for work as usual and was about leaving without giving her the normal allowance for the day’s meals.
She had a tender baby and was not prepared to starve until the evening when he would be back.
How was she going to feed herself and the baby the whole day?
He said he didn’t have any money on him but promised to come back to give her some money but she failed to understand.
They had a misunderstanding and she lost it when he shouted at her to behave herself that moment.
She hated it when he raised his voice at her especially when she was supposed to be apologised to.
She held him by his pant’s waist and they waited.
He warned her to leave him but she was adamant.
Then he did something he never ever wanted to do in his entire life. He laid a hand on her cheek and afterwards went on his knees to apologise. But the demon had already entered her and she turned into a ‘crazy’ lunatic.
She ran into the kitchen and he waited not knowing what she planned to do.
He saw her approaching very fast with a pestle and began to grin not knowing what she meant to do with it.
Then he realized it and ran.
But he couldn’t make it out before collapsing on the floor.
That was when the demon left and she laid herself on him and cried hell on earth.
Her scream alerted the neighbours and they all gathered to help him.
But nothing could be done to save him.
He was gone.
People asked questions they already knew answers to, what she did to him was there before them and the stained evidence lay by his side. She could not speak again. She went numb and distant, looked on but didn’t speak.
Her normal psychological state had been tampered with by her deed and when kinsmen summoned her for an answer to the question they already knew answers to, she couldn’t talk and throughout the funeral, she didn’t open her mouth to talk to anyone. No smiles, no cries, no expression, just there. Like someone very far away.
In those days culture demanded that if someone died by another’s hand, the culprit must be sent away to a faraway place never to return and that’s exactly her fate.
After the funeral, they led her out of her husbands compound, into the community for the pre-exile parade.
Sympathisers pleaded on her behalf and said the deed was out of mistake but the tradition could not be held back.
They paraded her along the community major roads with tender palm frond secured around her waist as a sign she had been exiled. She would never be allowed by anyone even family members to set foot upon the land again.
She didn’t care about what they were doing to her because she ceased to exist the moment she realized her love passed away by her hand.
All she wanted was to go back in time and undo her evil deed.
Hellow Anger, I See You But Hate To See You
I have seen you in the eyes.
You looked like a dire perdition burning down an entire existence.
Your passion heightened by seconds from smoky golden bronze to blazing sunny yellow to slashing red.
You tossed me off my feet into a horrible fiery unrest and instead of fleeing, I was rooted to a spot, shocked.
It’s stupid but I couldn’t move.
I only knelt down where I was, slowly with my hands in the air as if it was an order and as if you were a cocked riffle pointed at me.
How could I have escaped from those daggers which couldn’t possibly miss a target?
I have seen you in the muscles.
You had twitched so hard and vibrated to the extent that from a distance, it made my entire body feel tremor.
I had shrunk to the lowest level of my being and had embraced the earth, willing to fade into its core lest you dealt a blow.
I have seen you in the hair.
You’re so powerful that you made it lose its spirit without a touch. It had gone stiff in no time and pointy like an arrow before my eyes.
I have seen you walk across the streets
You always walked in an urged wicked strides along and across the street. You frequently held a lethal weapon looking for blood to shed, worse still, the blood of the innocent.
I have seen you around the lips too
Even such things as the lips! I have wondered why the poor lips. That’s the last thing anyone would ever like to attack. You so much held it that it trembled involuntarily within your grip.
You make the skin bleed to death and turn to a ghost without having to die.
Why is that?
Your poisonous venom destroy our world and your fire burn down our dwellings.
When?
When will you extend a peaceful handshake to your outlaws?
How do we clear your aura off our individualities?
Can we ever stiffle you with brotherly affection?
Can we ever overpower you with tolerance and kindness?
I hate to see you angry Anger!
I hate to see you around as aggressive and intolerant as you have become.
I hate to see you rule our societies and decree what will happen.
I hate to hear you speak. I would rather you sat and listened.
You shouldn’t react too.
You should sit at a corner and breathe.
Breathe until you’re fit to correlate and disappear into harmony.
I know you’re part of humanity but all we need now is peace.
Calm down now anger, give peace a chance.
© Florence Ezekafor
Fiezwrite 