Regarding PDTs

I can be an angry person. There is no sense in denying it or hiding from it. People who have worked with me, and people who know me casually, would find these to be odd, opening sentences. I believe they would think of me as a calm person, a person easy to get along with. Especially people who have had to work with me in a social work setting. They would most likely describe me as unnaturally calm in tense situations. I don’t think they could imagine me losing my temper. Controlling my temper does not come easy for me. 

Few relations or friends have seen me really lose my temper since childhood. Siblings, and some other close relatives, have memories of me being violently angry, probably through my early teen years. I think they would say that I am not the violent and angry person they once assumed I would become. College friends, or people I have only known in adulthood, would see me as a funny and nice person. Unless those friends from adulthood have the displeasure of being in one of my regular golf groups. These unfortunate individuals would probably be the only ones who have any clue as to how angry I was as a child. How angry I am under this façade of adulthood. I will speak more about golf later and explain what a PDT is. 

My wife knows that I am an angry person. She has seen, or more likely heard, me smash objects in every home that we have ever shared. I am not sure if she has viewed anything other than the aftermath of these outbursts. I could be wrong about this. Since I had to remove myself from proximity to my wife, these were usually objects in the basement or just outside of the house. Perhaps not items of great importance but common property none the less. My penance for such actions is having to clean up the mess and then spending the next couple of days proving that I am not a monster. This usually takes the form of me talking in higher, sing-song tones and pointing out how pretty flowers can be. My wife is not fooled by this but I feel like the effort is necessary.  

My wife and I have reached a kind of understanding about my temper. It is not optimal but, given my age at this writing, it is probably the best I can do. She is now most concerned with outbursts at the idiots that wander the streets of our lives. These public displays of temper (PDTs) happen two or three times a year and usually involve driving, crowded areas, or people who missed the common courtesy training in childhood. Her concern is that, once I tell someone what I think of them, things can get out of hand quickly. Given my age it is doubtful that I can match the fire of my words with fiery action anymore. Now I am putting a lot more effort into tempering my need to explain people’s stupidity to them. This has a nuance that is not at first evident. I cannot bite my tongue only when I fear that the consequence will be physical. I used to take pride in telling awful people about their awfulness no matter who they were. Now I can’t tell anyone what I think of their awfulness. This is because one can fall into the habit of being very brave with smaller, awful people than with larger, awful people. This has resulted in me only being brutally honest with men who are at least my size or larger, therefore increasing the odds of an unwelcome physical reaction to my unwanted critique. It now needs to be a no PDTs policy. 

That leaves only the basement, my back yard, and the golf course as safe arenas for my temper. Yes, I see the problem here. My basement is not public. My last two backyards are out of public view and mostly out of public hearing. I am going to call them borderline public at worst. That leaves the golf course as the problem. The problem does not always arise. If I am playing golf with people I don’t know particularly well, or with young people, I have been told that I am a pleasure to be with. It is when I am with one of my regular groups of golfers, or by myself, that my angry child makes frequent appearances. There has been no remedy for this. Golf is a horrible, horrible game. If it does not make you angry regularly, then you are not playing it properly. For most golfers, the acceptable PDTs are yelling foul language, hitting the ground with the golf club, and swinging the club at the air.  The foul language, or indiscernible cry of anguish, can be at a moderate to high volume. People within a square acre can hear you but should not be wetting themselves or covering their ears. When you slam the club into the ground it should not be enough force to do significant damage to the ground. When you swing at the air it should not verge on dislocating an arm joint. 

When I yell the sounds are usually too loud. When I slam a club at the ground it usually ends up too damaged. When I swing at the air it hurts too much and can mysteriously result in the club flying through the air. Throwing clubs is frowned upon by even fellow angry golfers. Though horrible, golf is still just a game. The level of anger I am discussing is out of proportion. I seem to be using golf to get all my frustrations out. I am using golf as a kind of primal scream therapy. My only excuse is that people with bad tempers have so few outlets for venting anymore. Golf may be one of the last places where primal rage is not seen as insane, just bad etiquette. Once the round is finished, the burst of rage is fodder for playing partners verbal jabs; but it is mostly tolerated. Tolerated because all regular golfers, that I know, have had a temper tantrum that they are embarrassed about. It is accepted that a few of us are just more prolific. 

Anyone familiar with my writing knows that I have a particular understanding about human behavior. Whether we like to admit it or not, no matter how highly evolved we see ourselves, we are still animals. We are patchily haired apes. My big brain allows me to make many excuses for what is fundamentally the result of what happens when an ape is frustrated. I refuse to say that the temper I have is unnatural but I have to recognize that other apes are doing a better job of keeping tempers in check. Since I have found ways to handle my anger in most arenas, I have to recognize that I am taking advantage of the game of golf. I am abusing the realm of golf to unload much of my pent-up frustration. I don’t deny that I can do better but it often feels wonderful to pummel something. Can I bear to part with some of the last vestiges of my animal nature? 

Despite the relief found in pummeling, I have concluded that I must go cold turkey on golf course tantrums. I must accept that it is too public an arena to keep acting like a frustrated ape. I must accept that I will most likely end up red faced, on the ground, having a massive coronary, while NOT pummeling something on the golf course. My end will come with me choking back my anger until my heart explodes. It is good etiquette. It is the taming of the frustrated ape. And though it is a kind of victory for mankind, the thought of this heroic end makes me very, very angry.