Amos Burton, the Unlikely Sage

On the occasion of family turmoil, I've done a lot of thinking about anger. There seems to be a lot of it around me, although none of it is actually mine. I recently read Tiamet's Wrath, by James S.A. Corey, and the dead-inside sociopath Amos Burton makes an observation so keen it sticks in my side weeks later.

"There's only a couple kinds of anger. You get angry because you're afraid of something or you get angry because you're frustrated."

Amos Burton, Tiamat’s Wrath, James S.A. Corey

Amos goes on to explain that the character he's talking to is really just frustrated, and this manifests as anger. This strikes me deeply because although it seems like an obvious statement after you read it, so often we accept anger as a response without saying to the angry person, "What's frustrating you?" or "What are you scared of?" This is compounded by societal pressures which say it's acceptable to be angry but not acceptable to be scared or frustrated. Somehow, anger is considered a valid emotion …