Ether 15 – Hate, Anger Seedbed of Destruction

The last chapter of Ether is one that totally mystifies my thinking.  How does one get to the point of such anger and hate that their very lives are of no value over the intense need to destroy another person?  I understand anger and how it can turn your focus into a non-stop pursuit of getting even.  But would I ever have let it take me down the road to hand-to-hand combat realizing that one of us would be dead when it was over? 

We see this type of anger on the news every night.  We hear about murder/suicides of couples.  We hear of the troubles in the Middle East and their determination to kill the American infidels.  We see bullying among young people that oft-times result in suicide.  We see cyber bullying that is causing a great deal of destruction.  Obviously, I don’t and never have felt that kind of hate and desire to injure another.  Even the only one person in this world that I temporarily had anger toward I have come to be terms with and we’re quite civil toward one another.  I’m grateful my hate and anger did not poison me to the point of no return as the people in Ether experienced.  “. . . drunk as with wine. . .” is how Ether worded it.  This is so truly sad and pitiful.

So the question comes:  How does one avoid this kind of hate and anger?  Our world generates it faster than ever.  Its roots are in selfishness (https://www.lds.org/ensign/1988/09/dealing-with-anger-and-contention?lang=eng).  The key then, as this article quoted says, is to overcome selfishness.  Admitting that it isn’t all about me. 

Quoting from this article in a past Ensign: “The popular view of our day has been that we are not responsible for our feelings; they just happen. In this view, other people and events cause us to feel certain things, and so our only choice is how we are going to show our anger.

“Burton Kelly, however, points out that emotional responses like anger are actually choices that we make. “For us to feel emotion,” he writes, “we must first be aware of some stimulus—an event, a thought, a memory. Then we interpret that stimulus—and that’s when the emotional response comes. Our interpretation can be relatively positive, neutral, or negative.” (Ensign, Feb. 1980, p. 9.) The stimulus itself has no inherent emotional charge; the emotion comes from within us because of how we choose or are conditioned to see the stimulus.

“Thus, to be angry is a choice we make; it is not “caused” by anything or anyone outside ourselves. If we can teach our children, in both words and actions, that choosing not to respond in anger is within our control, we will teach them one of life’s most valuable lessons. September 1988 Ensign, Dealing with Anger and Contention”.

Using these quotes makes this less of my blog, but I like the ideas and agree with them.  Anger is a choice.  I’ve watched my husband for 35 years and anger is not part of his arsenal of tools he uses to navigate this world.  Believe me, he has plenty of opportunities to be angry.  He will not go there.  I’ve tried to emulate this behavior because I’ve seen that it is a choice and its rewards are many.  It has taken years, but I don’t get angry.  And now anger is something that seems so foreign to me. 

As we view the behavior of Shiz and Coriantumr, it is easy to see the selfishness of each.  To Shiz, it was all about his desire to get even for the death of his brother.  Neither of them was willing to admit fault in any way and was willing to sacrifice the lives of their entire associates (but not self) . . . for what?  What did either one of them gain from this pathetic display of selfishness?  The way I see it, they gained a whole lot of trouble to deal with in the life after this one. 

The bottom line:  We must learn to control anger.  We must avoid it like the plague.  It has the power to take us down right along with those we are angry at.