Anger is never the primary emotion: It is usually sourced from
- Shame
- Pain
- Sadness
- Fear
“If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, which is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are.”
Montesquieu
Elizabeth Wurtzel on Depression
“That’s the thing I want to make clear about depression: It’s got nothing at all to do with life. In the course of life, there is sadness and pain and sorrow, all of which, in their right time and season, are normal — unpleasant, but normal. Depression is an altogether different zone because it involves a complete absence: absence of affect, absence of feeling, absence of response, absence of interest. The pain you feel in the course of a major clinical depression is an attempt on nature’s part (nature, after all, abhors a vacuum) to fill up the empty space. But for all intents and purposes, the deeply depressed are just the walking, waking dead.”
Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel
“The force of extreme sadness inevitably stuns the whole of our soul, impeding her freedom of action.”
Michel de Montaigne, On Solitude