The Best Friends You Have

You say that a good person should never know anger, that hatred serves no purpose, tis a plague upon the world. I think you are missing a very salient fact: anger and hate tell you when you have to watch your back. When someone screws you over is not anger always there to remind you of the danger, to avoid future despair? And when a psycho goes hunting, is not hate a useful tool to steel you against a monster who pays no heed to rules? If it were not for that we’d all be easy prey, are not anger and hate the methods that keep these scum away? Others claim that fear plays no good role in life, that it leads to evil, brings nothing but strife They never seem to realize, and God I wish they would, that fear is needed to escape from things that are not good! You fear breaking the law because it brings consequence, you fear being unemployed deprived of dollars and cents, you fear the mad gang-banger over-eager to kill, we all fear the power-hungry who would bend us to their will. You fear riding without helmets so you don’t smash your head, honestly, if not for fear we all would be long dead. And lately it is judgment that is trendy to avoid, for fear that some snowflake may be somehow annoyed, ignoring that one great truth that normal people see: you can never avoid judgment, humans are judgment machines. Judgment is what tells you your partner is borderline, that lutefisk is awful, that there’s no future in crime. Judgment is the device by which you pick your friends, it’s how you discern evil, measure means and ends. Avoiding judgment doesn’t make you a moral exemplar, since without making judgments morals won’t get you far. The thing of it that gets us is moving to the extremes, as much danger in too much, as not doing anything, take a lesson from the Buddhists and find the middle path, Tte point where it works for you and doesn’t drown you in wrath. Surrendering to these emotions makes you into their slave, avoiding them entirely also shortens your days. It’s tough to find balance and to some it seems mad, but anger, fear, and judgment are some of the best friends you’ll ever have.