Anger mismanagement and a discussion about murder

I wouldn't say I need the men in white coats.

Yet.

Lately, I've been experiencing more than my usual levels of barely controlled rage. It's pretty bad, I'll be honest. The old red mist descends probably around twice a day on average at the moment, and I've come perilously close to turning one of my road rage episodes into a fully fledged mission off Grand Theft Auto. You know those missions: the ones you give up on, because it's just so much more satisfying seeing how many people you can kill with a golf club before the cops arrive.

The reasons for my increase in apoplectic, seething, barely concealed fury are not really for discussion in this piece. I know what they are. I don't need a shrink to find out, and I don't need to talk about it. What I need is something firm and palpable I can beat the living fuck out of for a good hour or more. Daily. Probably something that breaths and annoys me a lot. So, probably something that breaths then.

I need to do something about it though. So all suggestions welcome, including the tear-jerkingly boring and inane not to mention wholly predictable ones from the usual standard set of Berkeley Hunts that visit this site on a daily basis.

The reason why I am writing this, is not just to explain about my current worrying state of mind, but to talk about some interesting things I've mused over of late.

You see, I am an extremely moral person. No, I don't have a monopoly on the understanding of what is moral and what isn't, but I take it for granted that certain basic, obvious things are right and proper. I embrace those.

I don't steal, I don't hurt anyone, I consider my neighbours a lot, I always ensure I leave enough space for them to park outside, I always treat everyone I meet with proper respect and etiquette. I am a good egg, overall.

But lately...there appears to be a few cracks appearing in my formerly concrete-solid character. My anger is weirdly morphing into something else. Something that creates moments of red eyed rage, quite similar to the rage in the film 28 Days Later.

This homicidal and angry. But infinitely better dressed.

Weirdly, in those moments of complete loss of control and rampant negativity, I briefly assume a very odd power mantle. A sort of momentary satisfaction that I am, at that moment, quite capable and up for tearing some motherfucker's head off and punting it off into the distance like Shay Given in one of his more desperate moments.

Then it goes again, and I'm left with that utterly infuriated vibe, where I simmer at 98 degrees Celsius for a good hour or so, just under boiling point, and ready to explode again. It's not great.

But my little insights have got me asking some seriously searching questions and philosophical questions about mankind.

At what point can a man be pushed, or can a regular bloke reach, before his morality and state of mind shifts to the extent that he is capable of killing. I don't just mean in a brief, rash and decidedly regretful moment of despair. I mean, to the point where his entire value system shifts and he is no longer Jimmy Blogger who opens doors for grannies and pops a quid in the charity pot in his local and buys the Big Issue every other Thursday.

To the point where he is a bona fide murderer.

Is this something that a tiny minority are capable of, and where the vast majority just don't go there?

That's clearly bollocks when you think about it. History has taught us the huge importance of upbringing, nurture, culture and the development of civilisation over the centuries when it comes to explaining western codes of conduct and morality.

In the early 20th century, when the stability of nations was at its weakest for generations, millions of people suddenly forgot morality and reverted back to old, blood thirsty instincts and notions of survival. People became violent, or accepting and tolerant of violence, because of fear and hatred of other people.

Imagine working for a week, to take this home, only to find out it's worth around 57 pence? Then imagine you've been bombarded with propaganda blaming it all on department store owning rich backstabbing Jews. It's easy to say you wouldn't be like the rest, but why did millions back Hitler on the Jews?

The stab in the back myth was something that required very little evidence before it was accepted wholesale by the German people in the 1930s. But then that should be obvious. When people are pushed, and when their anger and despair is prodded, they need reasons and they need an outlet.

War was an outlet, but equally as importantly, so was violent ideology.

In the West today, we all join hands and sing ring a ring a roses when we talk about the Nazis of the 1930s. We all agree, oh so easily, that they were evil and wrong and what they did was disgusting and the treatment of the Jews was awful.

These are all fair positions to take, but it completely ignores the fact that any given one of us, given similar circumstances, might easily act like the Germans did back then. Either the Germans who held the gun, or the Germans who phoned up the Gestapo office with a tip. Or the German who turned away and walked off at the sight of a Jew being beaten and kicked in the street.

Ask yourself this question: If you were a struggling German person back then, forced into penury, broke, awash with feelings of dis-empowerment and humiliation and with the knowledge that you could not feed your family or get a proper job, might you end up harbouring grudges against A.N.Other? It is very possible to imagine how you might.

I can see how value systems might suddenly alter. Let's face it, with the growth of the BNP in this country, worrying truths are not a million miles away.

Remember that lunatic militant feminist from the '60s and '70s? Valerie Solanas. A woman who wrote a pamphlet which lovingly adorns my bookshelf at home called 'The Scum Manifesto'. (SCUM = Society for Cutting Up Men).

Hello. Are you a bloke? You won't be in around 3 and a half seconds time.

Old Valerie nearly killed Andy Warhol, after plugging him with a good amount of the lead stuff. She will go down in history as one of the most extreme misandrists and hardcore feminist nut cases of all time.

She argued for the torture, humiliation and eradication of all men from existence. Her booklet, which is a hilarious read and comes highly Mr D recommended, makes Mein Kampf looking like a Mister Men book.

But you know what? I can see, I can understand what drove her and motivated her. I do not for a split second, as with Hitler, agree with her views or excuse them or relate to them. But I can see how a person might find themselves, or might contribute to their path towards, a situation where they become murderers and bloodthirsty maniacs.

Her childhood was horrendous. By her account, she was sexually abused by her dad and her awful 'upbringing' culminated in more sexual exploitation when she wound up on the streets selling her body to sleaze bags.

The anger, the sheer hatred and fury, that she vents in her 'book' doesn't strike a chord with me exactly. But I sort of see the fury and see how someone can reach that stage.

Cypress Hill, the legends, even sang about the concept under discussion within this very piece. Kind of them, eh?

So, luckily, I still maintain control of my emotions to the extent that I have not yet committed a serous crime under English Law. The 'value system' I have been given / I have nurtured is in tact. But it shakes, and it wibbles. It wobbles and it sort of crumbles a bit on odd places.

If I didn't live such a respectable life in a nice area, I am unsure whether this would still be the case for long.

What if I lived somewhere like this?

Would I get stuck into a fuck off Township Rebellion and go on the rampage, were I a resident in such climbs? You know what, I think I jolly well could.

I'll leave you with these dodgy, fucked up yet slightly prescient thoughts, dear readers. Have a good one won't you, and remember, prisons are like hotels these days. On the off chance I wind up doing turkey for turning someone into a stuffed fucking turkey, I'll likely have wireless broadband in my cell till 10 every night.

How might they put it in HMP?

"B&D 4 Life. Bitches"