Shtikl Says Thank You and Talks About Anger

Today’s posting has two parts. First I want to say some kind words about people I owe thanks to. Then I will share a wise quote by Benjamin Franklin on the subject of anger.

 
 
Part 1: Thank You

It is time for Shtikl to say thank you.

I thank Punts & Honza (my Sister & Brother in law) for buying me my first coffee via Shtikl.com!

I thank Indie for saying thank you. In the posting on August 21st I promised a hand-drawn cartoon to the first three comment-writers. One of them actually followed up and sent an real life address: My long time web-friend Indeterminacy. He asked me to draw a cartoon for his son Lenny (this one), and I packed in some other cartoons and added some sketches and pre-scan-originals as well, just for fun.

Indie made a video of his son reading the first one and deciphering my handwriting on the others:

I have to thank the guys at 37signals. They mentioned my post “You don’t need a plan…” on their blog “Signal vs. Noise” on August 31st. (Full disclosure: I admire them, study their ways, Elli & I are paying users of Backpack.) They are a fabulous company, their blog is A-list. Them mentioning me brought in literally thousands of visitors and about 70 new RSS-subscribers. (Maybe you are one of them… welcome to the Shtikl-Universe!)

 
 
Part 2: On Anger

Your anger has
different reasons than
you think it does.

Benjamin Franklin once said:

Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.

Sometimes when I am angry I do what philosophers call the “fallacy of rationalizing”. Bradley Dowden writes in his list of fallacies:

We are rationalizing when we give someone a reason to justify our action even though we know this reason is not really our own reason for our action, usually because the offered reason will sound better to the audience than our actual reason.

Most of the times when we are angry we rationalize our reasons: First comes the anger – or at least the potential for anger. Then comes the search for a good reason for being angry. Even during your anger-phase it already dawns on you that you are acting like a fool. So you make up justifying reasons. If you are lucky in your effort there might be something in the vicinity that looks like a “good reason for anger”.

Example: You have had a really bad day at the office. While driving home another driver fails to start his engine in time when the lights turn green. You have to wait while he is fiddling with his ignition. You explode.

Even if you succeed in making yourself believe that the reason for you anger was the other driver’s incompetence, it’s not true. The real reason was your bad day at the office. The poor driver fighting his car’s engine was just a pretty random pseudo-reason.

Next time when you are screaming at the world, in some hidden corner of your heart you should know that your real reasons for anger are different ones.

Your anger has
different reasons than
you think it does.