Anger Management

​Anger Management
I think I was being a pretty typical guy.  I was lying down and said to Merril you can watch what you like (on the tele).  So often I watch it for a while and roll over thinking, “I will listen” and wake up later and a completely different show is on.
Merril saw that the movie “Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood” was on.  She had heard it was supposed to be good so she watched it.  Later I looked up its ratings on Rotten Tomatoes.”  It had 95% Reviewers rating and 92% Audience rating.  Those sort of ratings are virtually unheard of (there may be a couple of spoilers in here).  A couple of the reviews of top critics said, “What a difference a day makes, when it's a day as beautiful as this” and “The film feels at once adventurous and classically simple.”  It is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea.  It so was not an adventure action packed mystery.  It was a character study and plodded along.
I did what was virtually unheard of for me, I watched it right through.  It starred Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers a children’s television show host and Matthew Rhys as Lloyd Vogel a cynical hard-hitting journalist with real anger issues.  It is based on a true story. 
The children’s show went for thirty or so years.  What I did not know about Fred Rogers is he had a theology degree.  The show intentionally did not highlight his “religious” side and kept it from sliding into cliches.  He deliberately tackled hard topics for the kids show, as we face hard topics as adults. 
What the show emphasized were the real problems of anger issues and how one person came to see his problem, and accepted it (initially reluctantly), and sought to deal with it.
He spent time trying to find fault with show hosts character.  I really liked when he saw the wife and said, “it must be hard living with a saint.”  She said, “I have problems with that word.  He is a very normal individual.
Eventually he was reconciled with his dad who had let the mum and the kids down.  The dad was dying of cancer and trying to apologise.  I wonder big time what makes me different from the object of my revenge if I do the same as them to them.  To me, someone needs to break the cycle, or else it continues.
That is easier to say than do.  So often it is years of resentment.  Not easy to undo but as they say the hardest part of any journey is the first step.
So many murder mysteries are built on trying to solve who did it, when what “it” was, was an act whose birth was in anger.  I do not reckon though anger always leads to physical violence.  So often it is emotional violence.  Putting the person in their place. Showing why what they did was wrong and why I am morally superior.
The thing is I am not.  What I do may not be as extreme.  It may be tamer but is the same.  A different response is needed and it may as well be me that does it.  After all, as I am fond of saying, I am not responsible for another’s actions, but I am responsible for mine.
I loved how the show host became a friend to the family.  He did not just say but did.  To me it is not my words that mark the difference, but my actions.