An analysis of the roots of anger and lack of freedom

1. www.unveilingthereality.com
Posted on July 16, 2015 by Juan A. Hernández
www.unveilingthereality.com
This title might be confusing to the reader. Could such different aspects of the
human nature share the same roots?. I am intending with this post to prove
that this is the case.
If we unveiled such roots, then the questions would be: could we use that
knowledge in a practical way?, could we get cured from anger and lack of
freedom with the same pill?.
I invite the reader to follow next reflections and find out how I address the
previous matters by introducing what I call “freedom meditation”.

2. www.unveilingthereality.com
Fig.1 Anger and freedom, two sides of the same coin
WHAT SAVED YOU ONCE CAN KILL YOU A HUNDRED TIMES
Raised in fear
I was raised in fear of anything slightly different from the orthodox way to
understand life. I suppose that when people live in fear they need to teach
their children how dangerous the world is and how to keep themselves from
the dangers lying in wait in the darkness.
My parents brought me up like that, teaching me to make always the most
conservative decisions to keep safe and sound. Thinking back to that time, I
think that probably that approach saved me from falling in drugs, like it
happened to a lot of my school mates. My neighbourhood was full of
temptations in that direction. I think fear of giving a chance to the devil kept
me safe then.
However, I was in fear of everything, so what saved me then was a heavy load
for a long period of my life. I had to fight against my complexes for many
years until being able to go beyond the limits and explore the reality
surrounding me.
I would say that fear saved me once, but it played against me for a series of
years until I was able to get rid of it. This is what I mean by “what saved you
once can kill you a hundred times”. If we keep resorting to the same thing,
being useful once in the past, we will experiment the defeat over and over,
since different problems need of different solutions. Fear cannot be a mantra
to be stuck to, it makes us so weak that we get incapable of facing a lot of
situations in life.

3. www.unveilingthereality.com
Fig.2 Raised in fear
Running away from fire
Imagine one person trying to find the exit of a room in fire when the smoke
keeps him from seeing anything. If that person does not remember the
emergency exit location he/she will have to make a quick decision, to choose
a random direction and start running for his/her life. Imagine that he/she
chooses the right direction. That person could be tented to resort to random
decisions later in his/her life, feeling confident that she/he has a sort of sixth
sense to escape from danger.
This thought experiment is only a metaphor for how we tend to get stick to
strategies and schemes that were useful for us in the past and how we tend to
consider them as absolute references of anchors in our lives. This approach is
not only incorrect but also really dangerous. Even if a strategy was successful
in the past, it has surely a specific application scope. The real danger is to
consider our schemes absolute, independent from any new problem scope.
Fig.3 Running from fire

4. www.unveilingthereality.com
IN SEARH OF THE ROOTS OF ANGER
Fred’s story
Let’s follow our friend Fred during one of his typical Monday mornings. Fred
is an imaginary character, but I am sure the reader will be able to identify a
friend or a relative with Fred.
Fred has one son and one daughter, being 16 and 14 years old respectively.
Every morning is a fight for Fred, he thinks that his wife goes usually to bed
very late at night and she is not energetic enough in the mornings as to make
the “kids” get ready early in order to get to the high school on time. He has
never got late to work, because he always gets up really early and usually gets
to the office the first in his department. He always checks the traffic news
before leaving home and chooses the best way according to that information.
Being punctual is a dogma for him, a principle. That is why he gets angry with
his son and daughter because they do not mind being late on a daily basis.
They have not inherited his main principle, and that is something that Fred
cannot neither understand nor bear. He cannot understand either why his wife
is so permissive with them.
Anyway, we have Fred now driving his car to the office. He gets angry at the
sight of some road works in his neighbourhood. These works should have
been got finished long time ago. He does not understand why it is taking so
long.
Once in the office, alone in his department, he starts reviewing a report that
another department has delivered. He gets angry when he realizes that they
did not follow Fred’s suggestions from the latest meeting. Fred considers that
the report, as usual, clearly leaves room for improvement.
During the rest of the day Fred gets angry with his boss, his workmates, the
sun, birds and once back home again with his son, daughter and wife.
Tuesday, back to start again, Fred keeps being angry all day, all week, all his
life.

5. www.unveilingthereality.com
Fig.4 What are the roots of anger?
What is the matter with Fred?
Can you tell the reason why Fred is angry all the time?. It is simple, the
external world does not react according to his schemes and opinions. He
thinks he is right, and so he gets angry when others behave wrongly.
What could we derived from the previous conclusion?. Again, it is simple,
Fred thinks his schemes are absolute. For him things are not relative, they do
not depend on circumstances, and there is no room for diversity.
Therefore, I dare to state that anger (in all its degrees) are closely related to a
set of absolute believes. People living in anger got stuck to their absolute
schemes long time ago and they do not accept to review them, to get feedback
from others, and what is worse, everybody else should behave according to
the same set of believes.
When, obviously, other people behave according to their own schemes, Fred
gets really angry. I am sure you know someone angry with the world in
general, I know at least a couple of them. We know their illness now: Fred’s
disease.

6. www.unveilingthereality.com
Fig.5 Fred’s disease
How does Fred’s disease originate?
I have already given the clues for the origin of anger. Since anger is an
outcome of a set of absolute believes, we should search why people get stuck
to certain schemes and they give them for granted for the rest of their lives.
Do you remember how I was raised in fear?, do you remember the person
running away from fire?. In my opinion that is the key, when certain schemes
were useful for you in the past or you derive some conclusions based on a few
events in your lives (what have no statistical validity), and you confirm that
those schemes are right and unique over and over, you eventually become
Fred.
I talked about the danger of having a static view of reality in a couple of
previous post: “Reality is a complex object (I) and (II)”.
http://unveilingthereality.com/2014/12/23/reality-understanding-needs-a-set-
of-tools/
http://unveilingthereality.com/2015/03/06/reality-is-a-complex-object-ii/
ON FREEDOM
I first start by distinguishing between physical and mind freedom. Obviously
the type of freedom I am addressing here is that dealing with the mind
constraints rather than with the physical ones. So, if someone is reading this
from prison, I am so sorry, this post will not do for what you are looking for.
In any case, the absence of mind freedom becomes an absence of physical
freedom too. Hence, to some extent I will be also talking about physical
freedom, when it is a consequence of our internal limitations.

7. www.unveilingthereality.com
Fig 6 Freedom
But, what is freedom?. For me, it is to keep a wide mentality capable of going
beyond external constraints. What are these external constraints?, they are not
more than widely accepted schemes that most of people follow. In many cases
certain social patterns are imposed due to a massive following and they seem
to be a non-written law. Escaping from strong external patterns, or constraints,
is like to go against the trend. Somehow we all are subject to external
constraints undermining our freedom. If we have accepted all that series of
external constraints we cannot make free decisions, since such patterns will be
weighting a lot in our decision-making.
Therefore, freedom for me is the non-acceptance of external patterns or
constraints even if they are widely accepted. This change in our mindset will
lead us to move from acting according to external expectations to act
according to your own schemes (those not imposed). Easy to say but not that
easy to be applied, right?. Follow my reasoning and you will see that it
requires some effort but the prize deserves it.
Why do we lie?
I find at least a couple of reasons why we lie. One of them is to take advantage
from our lie in order to get something in return. It will be the type of lie to
trick or cheat others, trying to get an advantage. The second one is less
negative, since it is not aimed at getting an advantage over others, but rather
aimed at making ourselves fit an accepted pattern. We lie to be seen following
the accepted trend. If your father in law asks you how you spent a friend of
yours’ stag night, you will say that you went to the theatre to see a
Shakespeare play. Even if you both, you and your father in law, know that you
actually went to a strip show, you will lie in order to fit the accepted schemes.
Hence, the lack of freedom leads to a false society in which people need to
either lie or behave as externally expected. We have got a society with a
mixture of liars and slaves.

8. www.unveilingthereality.com
RELEASE YOURSELF AND GET RID OF YOUR ANGER WITH THE
SAME PILL
If anger is caused by getting stuck to your own absolute schemes and
expecting others to follow them; and the lack of freedom is caused by getting
yourself stuck to external absolute schemes, do you not think that we are onto
something big?. Do you not think that the root of both, anger and lack of
freedom, is the assumption that first, reality is something absolute and second,
given that it is absolute everybody must follow the same patterns?. The only
difference between anger and lack of freedom is the direction in which this
reasoning flows. For the former you define the schemes and expect others to
follow them, however for the latter you accept the schemes defined by others.
In both cases you believe in the absolute nature of reality, and that is the real
root of anger and lack of freedom, the belief in an absolute reality.
So, by changing the way in which you look at reality you will stop being
angry with the world and know the real freedom at the same time.
Fig.7 Releasing others and yourself with the same pill
A process in two steps: stop expecting and then stop being expected
I think a nice way to walk the path is by splitting the process into two phases.
Firstly you need to transform your mind to release others from your schemes.
It is a way to stop expecting others to follow your way.
The second phase will be even sweeter, since once you have “granted” others
their freedom, it is your turn to grant yourself yours. Indeed, once you stop
expecting from others, you do not get angry with anybody and you blame
nobody, then and only then, you will have won your right to behave according
to your own schemes and not to other’s expectations. If you have granted
everybody else’s freedom nobody will have any claim on yours. You need to
be fair, you cannot release from others if you have not released everybody
first.
We could summary by saying that you need to stop expecting and then to stop
being expected.

9. www.unveilingthereality.com
FREEDOM MEDITATION
You may well ask “yes, I agree, but how on earth I will be able to transform
my view on reality overnight?”. My answer would be, “well, I did not say that
it is possible overnight, but it is possible with some daily work”.
The technique is a sort of mind yoga in which you will basically need to be a
bit more conscious of your automatic thoughts and feelings. It is a meditation
or observation of your spontaneous thoughts during your day to day life in
order to detect those thoughts related to binding others to your schemes.
For example, if Fred were practising this meditation he could get aware of
thoughts like “I cannot bear my wife not getting angry with the kids for not
getting up earlier”, “these road works should have been got finished one
month ago”, “the other department did not assume my suggestions to improve
their performance”, “this report is rubbish”, etc. Basically all those thoughts
are judgments based on Fred’s schemes. If Fred wanted to put freedom
meditation into practice he would need to create a mantra or visualization to
counteract each judgement. That is to say, each time one of these judgements
comes up spontaneously on Fred’s mind he should say internally something
such as “I have not the right to judge others according to my personal
believes”. It is only an example, Fred could use any mantra working for him.
The other alternative would be not to verbalize anything but to visualize
something like the judgment being diluted in the air.
The reader can play with verbalised mantras and/or visualizations indicating
to your internal self that you disagree with those judgments coming up on
your mind. Judgments will start getting weaker and weaker over time. As they
get weaker, the external overreactions against others will get weaker as well,
until you will eventually release everybody from your schemes and leave
them applicable only to yourself.
Once you have succeeded in releasing others from your schemes you will not
expect anything from anybody anymore. People surrounding you will start
perceiving you in a different way.
The second stage of the meditation will start by making up a similar mantra or
visualization for releasing yourself from others’ schemes. The process is
exactly the same, each time you are aware that you have a thought like “I
should do this because my wife/husband/mother/boss/… expects that from
me” you should destroy such though with your mantra or visualization. You
will be able to weaken your “slave” thoughts progressively until you will
eventually be able to get rid of them. As it happened during the first stage, you
will start not only thinking in a different manner, but acting in a different way
as well. You will be winning your freedom progressively until you will be

10. www.unveilingthereality.com
acting only based on your personal schemes instead of on other’s
expectations.
Fig.8 Becoming aware of your internal sphere by practising freedom
meditation
The basis of this meditation is to reach a higher consciousness of your internal
thoughts, what is not easy during our busy days. The trick is not to be
focusing only on the external things but also on how your automatic thoughts
react to those external things. It is like to enclose both, external things and
internal thoughts, into your consciousness sphere.
I cheer you up to throw yourself into this meditation, since I am sure you will
get a far higher level of relaxation and freedom in your life. I wish you the
best with your practice.
Before saying goodbye I would like to share with you something about the
environment in which I have been writing this post. Funk music in the
ImaginaFunk festival (1), in Torres, Jaen (2) has been a special soundtrack in
my mind while I organised these ideas for you. During this festival I am glad
to say that I discovered a great singer, Myles Sanko (3), not very well know
yet, but with the foundations of a music star. I am pretty sure he will become
something big in the next future. I leave a drop here for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDoN3YFJI-I&list=RDcDoN3YFJI-I
In addition, I would also like to mention that I was walking around Cádiz (4) a
few days later, reflecting about freedom, when I came across a bar named
“Freedom street”, just a sign of being reflecting in the right direction. Of
course, I could not avoid walking in and order a beer.

11. www.unveilingthereality.com
Fig.9 Freedom street bar in Cádiz
See you soon.
References
(1) http://www.imaginafunk.com/
(2) https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torres_(Ja%C3%A9n)
(3) http://www.mylessanko.com
(4) https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A1diz