Autopsy
Anger is not modifiable.
It belongs at the head of the periodic table of emotions.
When triggered it feels like, “Me Or You?!”
We speak about ourselves through our feelings, don’t we?
So do plants, though on a much higher plane.
In order to survive, a forested White Pine seedling has to forage for light. It has to get out from under the shade of overstory trees. To find the best spot of available light, a seedling first analyzes the amount of light falling on its needles, and, second, aims tubes of its underground rhizosphere to, “Hot Spots.”
Plants don’t attack its chlorophyllated cousins; plants feel that there’s enough light for everyone.
They don’t get, “Angry.”
They don’t get, “Even.”
At the smallest nip of its leaf, genes in a plant’s activate its immune system. Specialized cells are awakened to supply chemical defenses: turpenes. Turpenes are hydrocarbons, major biosynthetic building blocks used to fend off predators. For example, in less than 20 minutes from the moment a caterpillar begins feeding on a plant’s leaves, the plant forges a defensive biosynthetic compounds with turpenes. The turpenes do not kill the predator, they merely irritate and fend off the predator.
(They use shoots quite differently than people.)
Turpenes form the core of aromas that create many wonderful lifelong memories like, perhaps, the smell from your first Christmas Tree. Turpenes, such as menthol and camphor, are used in many preparations as local anesthetics and analgesics to soothe sore throats and to treat sunburns.
Anger triggers adrenaline and cortisol, core hormones that drive behaviors that can also form lifelong memories though these are called traumatic recalls.
Plants can’t survive without turpenes; turpenes are vital for propagation as they defend against herbivores..
People can’t survive without anger; however, anger can be a pathogen that is antithetical to propagation.
Big brain: big amplifier.
But, grasshoppers? A grasshopper is a tweener. A grasshopper will continue munching on a weed even while a song sparrow is gobbling it from behind. Yet, grasshoppers are very good at protecting themselves from predators: they can leap 20 times their body length in a single jump; they are always busy ingesting toxic chemicals that make them taste real bad. If you pick one up it will begin foaming at the mouth with the stuff that looks like the by-product of chewing tobacco.
The stuff tastes awful.
But, Moths? All moths are really pissed off. In the morning they slip through a tiny hole in a screened in porch and then work the rest of the day to find a way out.
I found a tiny frog on the rock brim of our bird bath. I used a piece of grass to play with it. The frog didn’t seem phased by me. Then I saw it empty its bowels.
An angry advantage with empty guts?
PRAYER FOR ANGER
That we
cherish our anger
before there is none.
That we discover, in it,
(before day has run,)
before time is done.