“I really love that this person still talks to me.”
That was the thought I had the other day.
It caught me off guard because I immediately found myself asking:
Why?
There are probably a hundred different reasons, but the first one that came to mind was surprisingly simple.
Whenever I got angry with them, I never let it get to the point of burning bridges.
That doesn’t mean I never got upset. I definitely did. But somehow I managed to express my frustration without making it deeply personal or saying things I couldn’t take back.
Now, I know that isn’t necessarily some great virtue.
Part of it probably comes from me being a people pleaser. That’s something I’ll have to figure out on my own.
But it left me wondering about something much bigger.
What is the appropriate response when you get angry?
Is there even such a thing?
Humans are complicated. We’re shaped by our upbringing, our insecurities, our relationships, and countless experiences that make each of us react differently. So the idea that there’s one universally correct response to anger almost feels naive.
And yet…
For the sake of this thought, I couldn’t stop wondering if there was some hypothetical golden response.
Not the morally perfect response.
Not the most socially acceptable one.
Just the response that communicates exactly what the emotion is trying to say—without expressing more than it needs to.
The first place my mind went was Stoicism.
I’ve always loved the idea of being unshakable. The image of someone who remains calm no matter what life throws at them is incredibly appealing. Someone who doesn’t let circumstances dictate their peace.
There’s something deeply admirable about that.
But then I remembered what teenage me would’ve thought.
“Yeah… they’d get bullied.”
Maybe that’s a little dramatic, but I think teenage me had a point.
The world isn’t an ideal place. People can be manipulative. They can take advantage of kindness. They can mistake composure for weakness.
So the idea that all I need is a copy of Meditations, a bit of mindfulness, and suddenly I’m immune to every emotional struggle feels a little like…
“Thanks. I’m cured.”
Life isn’t that simple.
Maybe I’ve misunderstood Stoicism. Maybe that’s just the version of it that exists in my head. Either way, I don’t think the answer is pretending anger shouldn’t exist.
Because the problem was never feeling angry.
It was always what came after it.
And that’s probably why a children’s movie ended up giving me a language that I didn’t realize I was looking for.
Somewhere along the way, my mind wandered to Inside Out.
I watched it years ago, so I don’t remember every detail, but I remember one idea that quietly stayed with me.
The movie treats emotions as more than just things we experience. They’re characters with their own purpose, each trying to help Riley navigate the world in the best way they know how.
Now, I’m no psychologist, and I have no idea how scientifically accurate any of it actually is.
But that’s beside the point.
What stuck with me wasn’t the psychology. It was the possibility that emotions—even the uncomfortable ones—aren’t simply obstacles to overcome.
Maybe they’re trying to tell us something.
Maybe they’re our mind’s way of communicating how it relates to the world around us.
Whether that signal is accurate or not is a completely different question.
But the signal itself still feels worth paying attention to.
Without realizing it, that idea slowly changed the question I was asking.
Instead of wondering,
“How should I react when I’m angry?”
I found myself asking,
“What is my anger actually trying to accomplish?”
To me, that felt like a much more interesting question.
If emotions are really signals, then maybe the way we express them is a kind of communication.
Not every signal needs to be amplified to its maximum volume.
Think about all the arguments that ended friendships or permanently changed relationships.
Could some of them have been avoided?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
I’m not interested in saying there’s always a right response. I don’t think there is.
I’m more interested in understanding what the emotion was trying to achieve in the first place.
Take revenge, for example.
Imagine someone is completely aware of what they’re doing.
You ask them why they hurt someone else, and they simply reply,
“I wanted revenge.”
That’s a perfectly clear answer.
But I don’t think it’s the end of the conversation.
It’s the beginning.
Why revenge?
What is revenge trying to accomplish?
And if you answer that question honestly, can you ask it again?
Maybe revenge is trying to restore dignity.
Maybe it’s trying to be understood.
Maybe it’s trying to make someone feel what you felt.
Or maybe, after all that questioning, you still arrive at the same conclusion.
“No. Revenge really is what I want.”
And honestly…
I think that’s okay too.
Not because it suddenly becomes morally right.
But because you’ve at least understood the goal your mind was pursuing instead of mistaking the first impulse for the final answer.
I’ve always liked the thought that,
“Closure is only wherever the imagination ends.”
Maybe that’s true for emotions too.
Maybe we only stop asking why because we’ve reached the point where we no longer know how to ask the next question.
So then what’s the point of all that exploration if I end up doing exactly what I was going to do anyway?
Maybe… nothing.
At least not in terms of the outcome.
If you’ve genuinely explored what your mind is trying to achieve and still arrive at the same decision, then maybe that decision was always going to be yours.
But I have noticed something about myself.
Whenever I spend enough time trying to understand an emotion, it seems to lose some of its intensity.
Not disappear.
Just… soften.
Almost as if being understood is enough for it to stop demanding my attention quite so loudly.
Which is strange.
Because I also know that isn’t always true.
I started this entire train of thought with a feeling that made me smile.
“I really love that this person still talks to me.”
And instead of diminishing that feeling by examining it, I think I’ve only come to appreciate it more.
So maybe I was wrong.
Or maybe not all emotions respond to understanding in the same way.
Maybe some emotions fade once they’ve been understood.
Maybe others become richer.
I don’t really know.
I guess that’s a thought for another day…