[Ameline]

Aggression is my nemesis. I cannot experience it in any normal manner and fear it more than anything else. I believe our society does not understand aggression and deals with it badly, if at all. To me it is a mistake to equate aggression with violence, even though it is one of its faces. As I understand it, it is a drive, an energy. It can be used to fuel courage, it can be used to achieve goals, it can be used to fulfill needs, it can be used to defend oneself and their boundaries when needed. And it can also be used to do harm. It is not connected solely to anger, but also to joy, love or passion. Intellectually I see this as an integral human thing, neither good nor bad. And I’m so deeply terrified of it!

(It's getting weird with the definition itself, though. Google and wiki seem to know mostly the aggression=violence meaning, only occasionally there is an article or two from the perspective I am using, some thesauri do include such a wide definition, but I'm getting confused. Can be a language thing, I'm not a native speaker and I'd wager there's a subtle connotation change. But I don't know of a different English equivalent. Boldness does not encompass it. It's surprisingly frustrating)

Anyway, what I often see around me is a multitude of people who try to get ahead by being passive-aggressive rather than assertive, who then go home and consume violent movies – and to their eyes that makes them good. And then, from time to time someone explodes with all the suppressed rage around, so we send them to anger management courses. It points me to a systematic mismanagement of this principle.

From previous experience with other rejected parts of myself, accepting and cultivating is the way. But I am so afraid of getting lost in it. I am afraid of losing myself to it. It’s all those stories you hear of cruelty, organized mass murder, war atrocities – and then you realize those are just ordinary people, like me or you, just put in an environment where to them this was…. acceptable. What makes them any different? What makes me different? If I were in a frenzied crowd screaming for blood, would I join in? If I “knew” it’s OK to do so, would I set people on fire? And what if I had been hurt by those people? Would that be enough turn me into someone like that?

How do I tackle this huge amorphous blob of a concept?

[Thunder Bow]

...."Aggression is my nemesis. I cannot experience it in any normal manner and fear it more than anything else. I believe our society does not understand aggression and deals with it badly, if at all. To me it is a mistake to equate aggression with violence, even though it is one of its faces. As I understand it, it is a drive, an energy. It can be used to fuel courage, it can be used to achieve goals, it can be used to fulfill needs, it can be used to defend oneself and their boundaries when needed. And it can also be used to do harm. It is not connected solely to anger, but also to joy, love or passion. Intellectually I see this as an integral human thing, neither good nor bad. And I’m so deeply terrified of it!"....

Just go with your first paragraph and forget the rest. You deserve success.

[MickeyCheeky]

You're right, it's not a good or bad thing.. so just makes it the best you can.

[ablankscript]

Most people probably never think about it. I don't know how many times I have seen an aggressive driver yelling obscenities at someone (sometimes me), but that aggression is misplaced they are late for somewhere or just impatient. Aggression ruins a persons tranquility, it shakes the various bodily systems and the mind becomes clouded. Aggression is a term that makes me think of survival of the fittest rather than cooperation. Aggression is a selfish emotion it is always about "me." And how pointless it is to return aggression with aggression it just become endless chain of revenge. Someone had it right, do not resist evil, but return good for evil, but that takes much presence of mind.

[leejosepho]

Originally Posted by Ameline

...a systematic mismanagement of this principle.

Understood and agreed.

Originally Posted by ablankscript

Someone had it right, do not resist evil, but return good for evil, but that takes much presence of mind.

Yes, and it is fine to do that aggressively.

[Gojamadar]

Perhaps you use the wrong defition and mistake "agression" and "drive"
Drive moves you forward, agression gets you into trouble!

[ablankscript]

Originally Posted by leejosepho

Understood and agreed.

Yes, and it is fine to do that aggressively.

I must respectively disagree, peace and aggression are two opposites on a spectrum. If you know something I don't please provide some instruction, because the underlying premise is Love for all and sure you could twist the definition of aggression and say you aggressively love all, but you could also just say that you love to love. It is all about what is in your heart, even if you are doing right yet hold aggression in your heart then that betrays you and you aren't being true to yourself and all things are known by truth, and there is an internal reaction to aggression your heart can't be at two points at one time. It seems there has to be a better term or way to define the "aggression" in the case of resisting evil, because he who did it only acted aggressively once as far as I know and even then it was said that he had done so out of zeal, not aggression. From my understanding defining behavior is tough as there are so many different words that mean similar things, but I think of an aggressive animal when I hear aggression and how these animals behave towards other animals and humans then I think of humans who may not act as violent, but their is something different about the aggressive person just like in an aggressive domestic animal whether they just hate other people or don't care about them and don't want to be bothered by them.

[leejosepho]

Originally Posted by ablankscript

...sure you could twist the definition of aggression and say you aggressively love all...

Yes, and the twist would be away from a lesser understanding of aggression as only ever being negative. I am not suggesting we try to re-train the entire world's use of the word, but I do find this insightful:

Originally Posted by Ameline

I believe our society does not understand aggression and deals with it badly, if at all. To me it is a mistake to equate aggression with violence, even though it is one of its faces. As I understand it, it is a drive, an energy. It can be used to fuel courage, it can be used to achieve goals, it can be used to fulfill needs, it can be used to defend oneself and their boundaries when needed. And it can also be used to do harm. It is not connected solely to anger, but also to joy, love or passion. Intellectually I see this as an integral human thing, neither good nor bad.

[Ameline]

After looking into the definitions of words, I had a moment where I was wondering if the problem itself isn't just about putting vastly different ideas under one header, but then I looked into my own mind-world and it is the same thing, the unifying energy, the one without which you are left like an unmanned ship at the mercy of ocean currents. A great deal of my life was spent being driven by avoidance, running away and escaping. That is better motivation than none, but once I actually got away from where I didn't want to be, things got a bit complicated. I know and feel there is a different energy, a move-towards type of thing. Incidentally, while the word aggression comes from lating aggredi that means attack, the expression originated as ad+gradi (towards+proceed,walk). So yeah, move towards.

But it is the same energy that can be used to hurt others, I certainly feel the potential there. I just can't figure it out. It scares me. I could never bear to watch war movies, I can't watch pretty much anything these days unless it's so over the top you can't take it seriously anymore. It scares me as a human thing that I know I have the potential for. There are really ugly things people have done - and are doing - to each other. Some time ago I was listening to a very interesting podcast about the WWII eastern front. Apart from some enlightening things about politics and world history there were some stories that stayed with me. And it's not just history, either. There are things likely happening right now... And I just keep asking myself what went wrong with the people (or if anything actually went wrong, perhaps we're all the same, except we can afford to pretend we're not like that). I fear losing myself like this, but you can only ever accept the full package... And I am actually scared of people, of mob mentality, I always keep to myself in a group, I don't want to be a part of a crowd, those are dangerous, they take away humanity...

[leejosepho]

Originally Posted by Ameline

while the word aggression comes from lating aggredi that means attack, the expression originated as ad+gradi (towards+proceed,walk). So yeah, move towards.

But it is the same energy that can be used to hurt others, I certainly feel the potential there. I just can't figure it out. It scares me.

I might not verbalize this well and I am no longer scared of my "potential self", as such, but I do understand your concern. I cannot even play a simple board game or card game without my "aggression" entering the picture at the expense of others, and yet I can aggressively advocate necessary accommodations for myself and others without demanding or forcefully taking anything from anyone. So even though aggression does not have to automatically corrupt moral character, moral character is still required for keeping aggression on the right track...or something like that.

[Lost_in_the_woods]

Physical aggression vs. Mental aggression... hmm...food for thought? ...or just bad word play?

[leejosepho]

Originally Posted by Lost_in_the_woods

Physical aggression vs. Mental aggression... hmm...food for thought? ...or just bad word play?

It is not physical versus mental, it is violent versus not at the expense of someone else. Mental aggression could still be manipulative and harmful. Consider this line at the end of my recent letter to a doctor:
"...it would be inexcusable to ever again attempt to justify such a refusal while relying upon a lack of knowledge and/or consideration of certain challenges faced by autistic or mental-health patients such as myself."

I was aggressively advocating for some accommodation and never once did I criticize or demand -- ex: I did *not* say what had happened to me had been inexcusable -- and then yesterday the doc's office called me and offered the desired accommodation. I suppose we could call my actions passive-aggressive, but the point is that my words were aggressive without ever being violent.