September 19
Anyone can be angry — that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right reason and in the right way: that is not given to everyone, and it is not easy.
Nicomachean Ethics (freely rendered)
Listening mode
Anyone can be angry — that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right reason and in the right way: that is not given to everyone, and it is not easy.
Often it's only on the way home that you notice something has hurt you. In the moment itself you nodded, maybe even made a joke. Now, with a little distance, you'd know what you could have said, calmly and precisely. Only there's no one left to say it to.
That doesn't make the anger dissolve. It looks for another occasion. Two days later you snap at some small thing, a cupboard door left open or a late reply, and the force of it doesn't fit the matter. Whoever bears the brunt of it can't know what it's for.
And yet you held back so as not to seem out of control. Too soon, too loud, unfair: you know that danger well. The other one is quieter. Anger that misses its moment doesn't grow more measured. It only loses its address.
Perhaps you do call after all, a week later. The other person barely remembers the remark. You have to repeat it, and even as you speak it sounds smaller than it felt. Whether that means it was any less hurtful, you don't know.
