{"id":13956,"date":"2019-09-28T19:40:54","date_gmt":"2019-09-29T02:40:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/?p=13956"},"modified":"2019-09-28T19:40:54","modified_gmt":"2019-09-29T02:40:54","slug":"are-you-ready-for-emotional-granularity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/are-you-ready-for-emotional-granularity\/","title":{"rendered":"Are You Ready For Emotional Granularity?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Granular<\/em> is a word that’s starting to make me wince, maybe because of the people who use it or maybe because it’s so onomatopoeic.\u00a0 I can almost feel it in my shoe, like sand. Nevertheless, I just came across a new theory that I love, involving “emotional granularity<\/em>.” Just as you would suspect, it means getting into the minutia of emotions, the gradations that distinguish one type of anger, let’s say, from another.<\/p>\n

Apparently, it helps to label an emotion when you’re trying to manage it. I guess that makes sense, if only because stopping to label it is a form of counting to ten. You also have to accept the notion that there are all kinds of anger, and in other cultures there are kinds we may not have experienced or named.<\/p>\n

Germans have a word that means “a face in need of a slap,”or backpfeifengesicht<\/em>. I’m not really familiar with that feeling but I’ve heard men talk about “the kind of face you want to punch.” Mandarin Chinese has a word for anger directed toward oneself; that one is familiar and ongoing. Ancient Greeks distinguished between short-term anger (orge<\/em> ) and a long-lasting anger that’s permanent (menin<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

In Thailand, there’s seven degrees of anger, starting with displeasure and ending with (just guessing) homicidal rage.<\/p>\n

So anyway, your ability to distinguish between the many varieties of your emotional experiences can help you cope better. If you can say to yourself, “That guy is an annoying cunt” instead of “Why are people so awful!” you will be less depressed<\/a> and less given to binge drinking<\/a>. Studies have shown, alright?<\/p>\n

I have already written about the varieties of misery<\/a> experienced in other countries but not anger. I think that in the U.S, people are experiencing new and debilitating forms of anger that probably need to be labeled, like the kind you feel when people with Southern accents talk about Christianity. Or the kind you feel when you listen to Tucker Carlson. And the kind you feel when reading about immigrants in cages.<\/p>\n

What about the kind you feel when the person in line in front of you at Starbucks has a ridiculous order? After all these years, I still have that one!!! What about when the thing you wanted at a great sale price is no longer available in your size?<\/p>\n

What about the kind when you see Taylor Swift trying to dance? Or the kind when someone starts talking about “the program”? So many types of anger, yearning to be named.<\/p>\n

I often have the one when your husband keeps reflexively contradicting you. Today, I experienced the anger you feel when your dog eats your toast because you looked away for ONE FUCKING SECOND at your Instagram feed.<\/p>\n

So, what do you guys think? Angry? Is it the kind where you thought reading a blog would be entertaining but it was just a waste of time? Are you buying the concept of emotional granularity and can you name an emotion that needs it’s own label, like schadenfreude? I’m going to call that Tucker Carlson feeling tuckerschmerz. <\/em>And I’m hoping that this time next year, it will be a fading memory rather than menin<\/em> .
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