Skip to main content

The Anatomy of Anger

As a writer, one thing that has always caught my attention is the remarkable adaptability of the Brazilian Portuguese language. It is highly versatile — elastic to the point of facilitating the expression of complex thoughts and emotions in both speech and writing.

But there is one word that many people tend to avoid, either because they feel it is too strong or because they want to suggest that what they feel is not quite so intense.

Time and again, I have seen patients arrive fuming with anger over their daily struggles, yet when confronted, they deny feeling angry. They describe it as something else — indignation, frustration, irritation, annoyance, resentment — when, in reality, they are simply angry.

This is partly due to the process of rationalisation, where we seek explanations to make sense of our thoughts and emotions.

However, anger is anger. It is not healthy to ignore an emotion that exists precisely to drive adjustments in our daily lives, pushing us to tackle problems through effort. That is healthy. That is normal. It is worth noting that patience is a valuable exercise in civility, but it does not eliminate anger — it merely channels it in a more measured way.

Anger, however, is different from rage. While anger is an emotion that triggers transformation, rage is an excess often linked to heated conflicts.

It is important to recognise that well-processed anger does not lead to resentment because it has served its purpose in resolving a situation. When this resolution does not occur, resentment takes root — and then come all the adjectives and adverbs used to justify it.

One of the most curious aspects of language is how, here in Brazil, we hide behind diminutives to downplay serious issues. A little flu, a tiny ache here and there — almost as if to say it is insignificant. But this is nothing more than denial, which is unhealthy because it distorts reality beyond reason. Perhaps, I speculate, we have missed many opportunities to improve our country precisely because we refuse to acknowledge our anger — or, should I say, our little daily dose of anger.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

When Shawn Mendes Became a Lifeline

When my father fell ill in his final days, the lyrics of Shawn Mendes’ In My Blood became an unexpected refuge, helping me process the reality unfolding before me. The song’s plea — its raw, urgent cry against the weight of helplessness — resonated in a way that felt almost too personal. “Help me, it’s like the walls are caving in” — those words captured the suffocating dread that gripped me in the small hours, waiting for news, hoping for a miracle I already knew would not come. The song does not offer easy comfort; nor does it deny the pain of endurance. Instead, it acknowledges the struggle — the desperate search for strength when every instinct urges collapse. “I just wanna give up, but I can’t.” That was it, exactly. The exhaustion, the emotional erosion, the moments when hope felt like a cruel joke. And yet, beneath it all, an unspoken defiance: the fight continues, not because it is easy, but because surrender is unthinkable. The grief that followed those long hours ...

The Quiet Battle of Becoming

Sometimes I write selfish pages. Not out of greed, nor vanity — no. I write them as if whispering to myself in the dark, so I don’t forget. Because forgetting is easy. The noise of the world is thick, sticky, clinging to the skin and numbing the senses. And in this blur of days, of duties, of silences swallowed whole, I must remind myself of what truly matters. Life isn’t a straight line, nor a grand revelation. It is a slow unravelling, a peeling away of what isn’t yours until you find what is. Never stop fighting, they say, until you arrive at your destined place. But what is destiny if not the place where you are most yourself? And how do you know when you’ve arrived? You don’t. You just keep moving, sculpting yourself with each step, shedding skins that no longer fit. There must be an aim, a north, a whisper calling you forward. Otherwise, what is effort but exhaustion? With purpose, even suffering holds meaning. The wind scatters those who walk without direction, but t...

The Shape of Thought

Gustav Klimt once said, “Art is a line around your thoughts.” A line — thin as a whisper, trembling yet deliberate — emerges from nothingness. It does not impose itself. It does not command. It is barely there, yet it holds. It is the first breath of form, the fragile boundary between the unsaid and the spoken. Without it, thought is a flicker in the dark, a thing half-lived, dissolving before it can be known. A vision stirs. Not summoned, not controlled. It arrives unbidden — whole yet veiled, elusive yet certain. It lingers at the edge of perception, pressing gently, insistently, against the mind’s quiet. It cannot be seized outright. To reach for it is to risk shattering it; to hesitate is to watch it dissolve. And so, the line must be drawn. But not too soon. Not too rigidly. It must breathe, as thought itself breathes, as meaning unfolds. The hand moves, uncertain yet assured, guided by something beyond logic. An intelligence older than language, something that knows ...