Release Stuck Anger to Cure Depression
Libido. Guts. Duels. Desires. Letting go is not the opposite of control — it’s the very way you learn to gain control.
A sliver of your human nature is lost when you no longer feel a primal craving for violence.
You need appetites. Appetites are the hallmark of health and chutzpah. Appetites are symptoms that the dog in you is still alive. In traditional Chinese medicine as well as vernacular Asian culture, hunger — the most literal appetite — means your health is fine, or even if you’re sick, it means it’s not severe. Appetite, more abstractly, means desire. It’s a wanting for something. An appetite can be for sex, money, power, shopping;1 you get the point.
One vital appetite we have is the hunger for competition and conquest.
Just like how a loss of appetite for food indicates a decline in physical health, a loss in that carnal, animalistic, and lizard-brain-rage appetite for blood indicates some kind of a psychological misbalance.
I am the happiest, fittest, and the most mentally powerful after a good duel. Fencing and other martial arts are excellent forms of controlled violence. Running, working out, lifting, yoga — no other form of exercise makes up for this. I’ve also tried archery and knife throwing, and I’ve found a deeper connection with the latter because there’s something primal about tracing the contours of the blade with my fingertips, feeling visually and spatially engaged with the distance to the bullseye. No Pilates can substitute for the soft thud the knife makes when hitting the target.
The default condition of human nature is violence and rivalry, not peace. Even when there is peace, it comes through strength and hierarchies established post-defeat (or forfeit).2
We love watching fights and movies with fights because it satisfies this appetite. Sports is a watered-down version of this phenomenon, but even within sports, the appeal of some games relies heavily on brute force, such as American football3 and hockey. You might not consciously think about violence when you’re playing a sport or at the gym, but the subconscious drive remains. It’s why you feel more feral after a good workout. The body doesn’t know or care about aesthetics or swimsuits, it only thinks of combat/hunting/defence when it’s being exercised.
What happens when we don’t release this genetically ancestral urge? We let it accumulate… And it makes us sick.
Much of depression is congested anger. It sits in your chest like a ball of white heat, and if you don’t release it, it corrodes you inwardly, its radioactive waste rotting and seeping into your bloodstream, weighing you down until you feel like you’re dead and just waiting to be buried.
I know what depression feels like. Most of the time, you’re not sad. It’s just an ache that never goes away. You want to go home but you don’t know where it is, and even when you find it, it doesn’t feel like home. You’re not really living; just existing. You feel like you’ve lost your spark and are merely dwelling in your own shadow. You don’t even have the courage to make eye contact with yourself in the mirror. It feels like you’re trapped in a small beige room and even when you’re given colorful gifts, they turn beige as soon as they sit in your room for more than a minute. You cry without even realizing that there are tears. When you are depressed, you are essentially empty of appetites. Depression feels more like being lost than being sad. The pain comes from emptiness more than it does from hurt feelings.
Sweat cures what philosophy can’t. Physical movement is the best way of improving mood, but not all movements are created equal. Sports are better at satisfying the appetite for combat than plain exercise. However, some sports are more intellectual while others are more brutish.
Intellectual sports are more like “chess played with the muscles” than they are actual combat. On the extreme tail, you have games like mah-jong. Moving over, you get golf, swimming, shooting, and other single-player goal-focused sports. Then tennis and other paddle/racquet sports. Then volleyball, soccer, and other team sports. Then contact sports like football followed by the combat sports like wrestling, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and Muay-thai. All sports have their benefits, but it’s the grappling, striking, 1-1 ones that leave cuts and bruises that you need to cure your psychological ailments. You need to harness the mastermind and control your inner strategist, but you also need to release the id. The more you repress your libido4, the more damage it does to you internally.
Holding onto the beast is a slow but sure death sentence you give to yourself.
Combat sports also disintegrate anxiety. In the moment when you’re facing life-or-death (even if just in simulation) and your physical ability determines the outcome of that decision, be it strength, stamina, reflexes, flexibility, or speed, you no longer worry about the deadlines at work, bills to pay, or the people who hurt your feelings over words. All the “fake” fears and psychological paranoia d i s a p p e a r.
Yes, you are a cerebral, philosophical, rational, and gigabrain chad in a body made out of flesh that will one day return to dirt, but don’t forget that this meat-vehicle is also the limitation of what that gigabrain can express in the form of actions. Don’t forget that the body “thinks” and that cells have “memories”. You are not the master of your own house all the time. You have instincts. You have dangerous urges. In fact, Releasing the brute with noble discretion shows greater self-control than repressing impulses out of fear of losing control.
Get back in touch with your primal roots. Remember that you’re an animal. Your cells are crafted by the hands of Father God and Mother Nature to protect you from predators and lead you to prey. The genes of the ancestors who lived most of their lives in a state of semi-starvation still exist in you. Touch some literal grass and dirt and be wild. Letting go is not the opposite of control — it’s the very way you learn to gain control.
This is the modern equivalent of the female appetite / desire for gathering.
“If you want peace, prepare for war.” (Latin adage; Si vis pacem, para bellum.)
I don’t follow football but I do find the crash and crunch of 300-pound men ramming into each other suuuuper satisfying.
Libido = The energy of desire. While broadly used to refer to the sex drive, this isn’t accurate. Psychoanalytically, libido describes the general urge to exercise liveliness; it is the opposite of the death drive, which is the subconscious urge to self-destruct or return to an organic, inanimate state. Inarguably, procreation demonstrates the pinnacle of that liveliness (like how suicide does for the latter). Libido and the death drive both exist as part of the id.
There's nothing like being a monster in a meat-vehicle. (Chef's kiss)
It's okay to have dark desires and wild fantasies. That's normal. What isn't normal is acting like they don't or shouldn't exist, and then wondering why you feel like you don't fit into the world. That level of cognitive dissonance will break you. Which clearly is a society-wide problem now.
The best way to fit into the world is to acknowledge really unpleasant/difficult/weird things about your nature and then find people you can express them with. (E.g. this is what a healthy, fun sexual relationship is for. Or like you said, sports.)
Great message, thank you
I recently competed in a Half-Ironman triathlon, a 1.2 mile swim, 50mi ride, and 13mi run.
Thousands of depressed adults competed alongside me.
To compete, it was at least $1k an entry.
Thousands of adults could’ve saved at least $1k if they read this piece before signing up— and took it to heart.
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Sports and sweat are an outlet for billions of people worldwide.
As a D1 athlete and lifetime athlete, I feel that—
sports are one of those ultimate outlets for humanity that offer all us an escape from the inescapable hells everyone confronts in life.
Why are sports such an appealing outlet?
There’s countless factors that span across the twin themes of both nature and nurture.
Naturally, dopamine and other behavioral psychologists align with the longevity and other physiological benefits.
Nurturally, the genuine human connection, spirit of competition, and community it creates— all help drive a spirit of culture that puts sports front and center in many good societies today.
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I liked your use of Depression throughout this piece to guide the reader in understanding the value in sports; we are caught up in calling them games. Life is a game. Sports are just more-clearly a game.