Why All the Anger? June 2023

This article was published in the June 2023 issue of the Youngstown Buckeye Review, a locally owned black publication.   

Quick review:  The LIE that humans are consumers and the many words and ideas related to consumption are the source of many psychological, economic, political, and spiritual problems.  Humans are Producers and we must use Producer language to think, talk, and make life decisions.  Major Producer words are Inputs, Outputs, the Outputs called FARTs (feelings, actions, reactions, and thoughts), and Vectors that store the memories of your Inputs and FARTs.  To illustrate, let’s look at the subject of anger, which nowadays seems to be everywhere.  Key point:  you should never point a finger at someone and say “You made me mad” or “You’re the cause of my anger.”  Instead, it’s:

“I’m a Producer.  I produce my Output called anger.  Yes, what you said and/or did to me are big Inputs but other Inputs may be involved in my production of anger towards you (e.g., lack of sleep, poor diet, my living and/or work conditions, my personal issues, I’m angry at someone or something else).” 

An example is adults’ anger at a child’s bad behaviors.  Using Producer language, we must think and say:

“The child is a Producer of his/her Output of bad behaviors.  I’m a Producer.  The child’s bad behaviors are my Inputs.  Yes, I’m producing anger for these Inputs but other Inputs may be involved in my production of the anger (e.g., lack of sleep, poor diet, my living and/or work conditions, my personal issues, I’m angry at someone or something else).  Also, as the adult, I must think about the Inputs causing the child to produce his/her Output of bad behaviors.”   

Adding Vectors and FARTs to thinking and talking about adult anger towards a child, Producer language says:

“I have a huge number of Vectors in my life.  The child is one of those Vectors.  What the child said and/or did are Inputs to which I produced negative FARTs (feelings, actions, reactions, and thoughts).  But I have to be clearheaded and introspective.  I must think about my other Vectors.  My sleep Vector, my diet Vector, Vectors for my living and/or work conditions, Vectors for my beliefs and values, and Vectors for people (my Mommy Vector, Daddy Vector, etc.) may contain Inputs and FARTs that contribute to my production of negative FARTs for the child.  Also, as the adult, I must think about the Inputs and FARTs stored in the child’s own set of Vectors and how they contribute to the child’s production of his/her Output of bad behaviors.”  

Note how the Producer words negative FARTs replace the word anger.  The word anger is too consumptive, too transactional, too binary, and prevents a deeper understanding of our emotions and who we are.  Using Producer words to think, talk, and make life decisions about any subject (like anger) opens the doors to self-awareness, mindfulness, maturity, and a common human flourishing that reduces inappropriate, unreasonable, and unproductive behaviors (like misplaced anger). 

Future articles will discuss how FARTs are produced, how negative FARTs are mostly about fear, and how others controlling our FARTs leads to marginalization and oppression.