Mark|CBD
“I suppose yeah, I mean, I suppose there’s lots of times. I don’t, I’m sort of, what would you call it? I’m the sort of person who doesn’t necessarily manifest it directly. Passive-aggressive. You know? So, I’ll have the thoughts inside, but outside I’ll be all sweetness and smiling and what have you.
So I suppose historically that’s been my way of kind of dealing with it or internalising it, and I know that’s not good, and I, what I had tended to find with myself is that when I did get angry, when I expressed it, because I don’t do it a lot, I tend to over-do it. You tend just, and then you’d regret it and think, oh well I didn’t actually mean it quite that bad. You know?
It can happen with different things. I know sometimes if I’m scrolling through stuff on Facebook and I’ll see something that particularly is upsetting or, or seems to be unreasonable, you know. I mean it might be from a political or a social injustice angle, or something like that, or something that somebody will say that to me seems really unkind. Unsympathetic. There will be a temptation to sort of write back a snarky comment, but I usually don’t, but on the very, on the occasions when I have, I’m sort of usually regret it, so I try to sort of take a deep breath and think about it for a minute, before I respond, rather than just bounce straight back.
In fact, I think that’s generally a good thing to do with anger, is that you need a moment to get over yourself, and then think about, what do I really need to say in response to this? It’s not just about how I’m feeling; it’s about what matters. Sometimes that takes a little bit of time. I think that rushing in, you know, where they say fools rush in where angels fear to tread; well sometimes you’ve just got to take that moment before you respond.
I’ve had times occasionally when somebody’s been angry at me, angry at me for something, and I’ve learned there’s a proverb that says, a quiet answer turns away wrath. And there are some times you know, their anger is really justified, and so if it’s justified then I should apologise, and get it clear with them. If it’s not justified the best thing to do is to not respond in kind, but to respond gently and, sometimes just your quietness or, it’s not exactly submissive, but it’s kind of not buying into their anger, actually diffuses it. It tends to water it down and then the person will say, oh well that’s alright. It’s not so bad then. If you respond the same way that they respond, if you snap back in anger then that just amplifies the anger on both sides, but if you absorb it you become kind of like a shock absorber and you take it in, rather than bouncing it straight back at them. That often is what it takes to diffuse the situation, and once the emotions have come down a little bit, then you can talk a lot more reasonably about what actually is going on.
Okay, well I’m an Auckland boy, and I’m a professional musician. I write as well. I’ve published a few books and things. What’s important to me? I think that we, our lives are, body, mind and spirit, and I think if you leave out any of those elements that you, you’re missing something.
I’m actually a Jesus-follower myself. I’m a little cautious to say Christian these days, because there’s a lot of negative stuff with that label, but that’s where my value base and my raison d’etre kind of come from. I guess that informs everything else. If you have a value system at the core of who you are then hopefully if it’s got any value it will, it’ll infiltrate the rest of your life in one way or another.
I have a little bit of contact with an organisation called Splice. If you know what splicing is, it’s getting things and knotting them together. They’re an inner-city group who are trying to build community in the CBD here, because you know, a lot of us live in apartments and the classic kind of paradigm is that, oh well people live in the city and the more people that are around the less people you actually know. So, they’re trying to do something about that by creating events and situation where people can meet each other and network and make friendships and do stuff, you know, together in the city here. I like that idea, and I’m a little bit part of, you know being part of what they do. We’ve, they’ve recently been making videos like you are doing actually. They’re doing some stuff for ‘random acts of kindness’ day which is next week, and I’ve been involved in that. So that’s, that’s kind of, it’s just a small part of what I do living here.”
