“I would strike you if I were not angry!” is a quote from Seneca attributed to Socrates’ thinking. (1) Anger is an emotion that comes to all of us. That said, how we control it is a very individual undertaking and, ultimately, a difficult journey. All one has to do is go among people in a school, shop, or office to see how many people poorly respond to wrath. The most stunning realization is that anger is far more pernicious to the bearer than it is to the receiver.

I always remember having to stand in front of my class in Grade One to give a presentation on what my father did for work. This experience is still indelible some sixty-plus years later. My memory isseared by two poignant realizations, among others: firstly, speaking publicly is an uncomfortable occurrence and has to be practiced and re-practiced to achieve even a semblance of skill, and secondly, not everyone has a father. In our class, many, those who were mostly poor, didn’t. All-encompassing was a choking sense of shyness; as I began to talk, my throat constricted, and I felt as if I was going to faint. What steadied me was the visceral terror that I had of failure and its concomitant punishments, both at school and at home. This was a time of “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” The relatively modern phenomena of public emotions (think weeping with fear) and of ADHD (1) hadn’t yet been invented.