Conclusion

Congratulations on finishing the book!

So, unless you’re a Weirdo or one of The Gifted, you’ve increased your anger to life ratio since you started this volume.

Now you know the basics of getting angry: ignore all feelings besides fury, make yourself a victim, and blame anyone else for making you mad.

You also understand how to create expectations that are both misaligned with reality and made of steel.

You’ve discovered how to distort the day-to-day events in your life into more fuel for rage, and how to complement your mental habits with tension-building practices for your body. 

You’ve found out the importance of developing relationships that will support your angriest self.

And you’ve acquired top-level strategies for developing a worldview guaranteed to keep you livid.

In summary, know you know how to make yourself angry in any situation, especially around all the #!%#&*@ who really deserve it.

And enjoy an emotionally-fulfilling life you only thought possible in your dreams!

Well, I guess that’s just about a wrap…

Hypothetical Reader (e.g., You): Hey, you never answered my question about the movie Memento.

Legions of Fellow Readers: Yeah! Answer the question!

Me: Okay, I’ll give it a try. Please remind me of the question.

One of You: What? You’re the one writing the book, which means you wrote the question in the first place. Go remind yourself.

Me: Fair enough. (Moments later) In the book’s Introduction, you asked, “Well, I still can’t understand the ending of the movie Memento. You know, that revenge story, told backwards, about the guy who lost his ability to make new memories. At the end of the movie, did he get the right guy or not?”

Me: My answer is that I’m not sure ‘the right guy’ was the movie’s key point. Anyone have something else?

One of You: Existential crises, including the sense of alienation described in the opening of Crime and Punishment, are engendered by self-repudiation, and lead to despair, further abrogation of one’s essential duty to the core self, and intractable animosity.

Confused Person (i.e., Me): Can you break that down a little more for me?

The Same One of You: Lying to yourself is bad and leaves you pissed at everyone else.

Less-confused Person (i.e., Me): Got it. Anyone else?

Another One of You: Uncritically defaulting to memory as epistemological gold at the nucleus of your self-narrative leads to gratuitous internal tribulations.

Confused Person (i.e., Still Me): Can you break that down a little more for me?

The Same Another One of You: Memory loss was the movie’s plot device to demonstrate how hard we work to hold our victim and revenge stories together. The fact, and the problem, is that our cherished memories aren’t perfect video recordings. They change over time, attach to new emotions and relationships, and take on new meaning. So, the basis of our internal Netflix series, with us as the protagonist, is an evolving neurological process.

Less-confused Person (i.e., Yup, Still Me): I’m most of the way there, if you could just summarize…

The Same Another One of You (resisting the urge to sigh… then taking a moment to remind yourself people are just doing the best they can, no matter how irritating it feels to you): Problems happen when we cling too tightly to the old story.

Me: Thank you for your patience, understanding, and care.

**

The End

Thanks for reading!!