Anger!

December 3rd, 2016| Topic: RaMbLeS | 0

Ye olde city of Dallas has an “Anger Room.”

It was established a few years ago by Donna Alexander, as a space for irritated and stressed folks could take out their tension in a violent way—but not on others. Instead they could warmly and passionately wreak havoc on televisions, furniture, and even on mannequins. For a charge, of course.

Items that Alexander and her partners cull from discarded piles on curbs and driveways are collected and provided for your merry mayhem-making.

Word spread.

Said Alexander:

I started getting strangers at my door asking if my house was the place to break stuff. When that happened, I knew I had a business. I would play music on my laptop and just let them have at it.”

A 1,000-square-foot space in downtown Dallas serves as the center for venting your spleen: the Anger Room. For $25 you get five minutes to crush clocks, printers, cups, vases, and so on. For a custom smashing setup, the charge goes to $500.

And you get to pick your weapon of destruction, says Alexander.

“Some of our typical options are baseball bats, golf clubs, two-by-fours. We get things like metal pipes, mannequin arms and legs, skillets, legs from tables. Sledgehammers, crowbars and things like that. No sharp objects or gadgets that use ammunition.”

Your charge includes protective equipment—helmet and googles, boots and gloves. And a choice of soundtrack to which to conduct your demolition drama.

The election season was a profitable one for Alexander’s Anger Room. The name of the candidate who was the subject of ire was written on plates that got destroyed. You could also pick mannequins of Hillary or Donald upon which unburden your resentful, frenzied, furious, madding, demented, and seething soul. (Current score of mannequins destroyed: Hillary: 2; Donald: 3.)

Now there is even a waiting list. So much so, Alexander has quit her marketing job at a local steakhouse to run the Anger Room.

This, they say, is a worldwide phenomenon. Anger Room clones have sprouted in Toronto, Houston, Australia, …. “Franchise opportunities now available” announces the website of Anger Room.

Alexander reports that her customers have included executives from Hilton and Microsoft.

Not all are in a happy place about angry rooms.

Declared George Slavich, clinical psychologist at UCLA, and director of its Laboratory for Stress Assessment and Research.

Although it’s appealing to think that expressing anger can reduce stress, there is not much evidence of that. On the contrary, the types of physiological and immune responses that occur during anger can actually be harmful for health.”

Slavich recommends other benign and more placid techniques to diminish stress: mindfulness, meditation, cognitive behavior therapy, etc.

That’s probably wise.

One of the frequently occurring topics in the Book of Proverbs is about restraining anger.

One who is slow to anger has great understanding,
But one who is quick-tempered exalts folly.
Proverbs 14:29

A hot-tempered person stirs up strife,
But the slow to anger calms a dispute.
Proverbs 15:18

One who is slow to anger is better than the mighty,
And he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city.
Proverbs 16:32

A person’s prudence makes him slow to anger,
And it is his glory to overlook a transgression.
Proverbs 19:11

An angry person stirs up strife,
And a hot-tempered person abounds in transgression.
Proverbs 29:22

For the churning of milk produces butter, …;
So the churning of anger produces strife.
Proverbs 30:33

And as for the non-angry folks:

Do not associate with a person given to anger;
Or go with a hot-tempered person.
Proverbs 22:24

Yup, chill!