Fist of fury

Sometimes I just want to punch people in the face.

Let me emphasize that this is a new feeling for me. I've never been a physically violent or even hot-tempered person. I never got into a fight in school—not because I was afraid of getting beat up (although that's very likely what would have happened), but because it isn't in my nature. I DO like to argue, as everyone reading this must already know, so I don't shy away from conflict, but typically in an argument my emotions remain in check. I've always felt that arguments come to blows only when people are either too stupid or too cowardly to articulate their ideas verbally. In other words, people resort to violence only when their words are impotent. Turns out I'm a fan of neither stupidity nor cowardice, and I'm certainly not cheering for verbal impotence, so you'd expect anger management to come to me naturally. And usually it does.

But sometimes I still want to punch people in the face.

Not very often, of course. It's actually a very specific set of circumstances that boil my blood, and I've spent a reasonable amount of time trying to figure out exactly why they set me off when ordinarily it's not in my nature. I found common thread: arguments in which I've gone to considerable effort to explain myself, yet the other person almost deliberately refuses to understand me. In these arguments, my words are involuntarily rendered impotent—not because I can't articulate myself, but because I'm dealing with someone who has already deemed unimportant something he doesn't care to understand.

In some ways my frustration is probably obvious and commonplace—no one likes to have their hard work casually tossed aside—but for me it's more personal and not at all trivial. In all my interpersonal interactions—with my wife, family, friends, colleagues, whatever—my overwhelmingly top priority is to be understood. Not to be praised or to dominate or to be the smartest, not even to be comforted or loved, but to be understood. That's why I love to teach, why I sincerely appreciate it when people dissent on this blog, and particularly why I enjoy arguing. Done properly, disagreement gives me an opportunity both to understand someone else and to be understood. THAT is the miracle of human interaction—that after hours of discussion two friends arguing over dinner can breach the lonely barrier of solipsism and arrive at a mutually edifying mutual understanding. For me it's the only really authentic way of connecting with another person: through his ideas. Everything else is superficial by comparison. So when you stomp on that connection because you're too busy pushing your agenda, defending your pride, or just being angry simply because I disagree with you, you stomp on an innate part of me, and you deny me the only meaningful way I have to connect with you.

And when that happens, don't get angry if I want to punch you in the face. Maybe you deserve it.