Anger as the Fuel of Evolution. Or Why We Don't Have Styluses

Author: Dmitriy Telushko

We are accustomed to dividing emotions into "good" and "bad." We are taught to suppress anger, be ashamed of envy, and hide irritation behind a polite smile. We are told that anger destroys. But what if I told you that the device you might be holding right now—your smartphone with its intuitive, lively screen—exists precisely because of an uncontrolled, furious outburst of anger?

In this chapter from my upcoming book on Emotional Intelligence, we will explore how seemingly destructive energy creates the future.

In 2005, Steve Jobs found himself at a dinner party. The evening promised to be calm, but fate had other plans. At the table sat a Microsoft engineer who spent the entire evening recounting with undisguised smugness how they were going to "kill" Apple. He boasted about a new tablet controlled by a special plastic stick—a stylus. "We will change the world," he said. "You will have to license our technologies."

Jobs listened. And inside him, it wasn't just offense boiling up, but genuine, primal rage. It was a mixture of anger at someone else's arrogance and perhaps a drop of that "toxic" envy—the fear that someone else would seize the future.

Most people in such a situation would do what society teaches us: swallow the anger, nod politely, and go home to complain to loved ones. But anger is not just a reaction. Anger is action energy. It is a signal from our psyche that reality does not meet our standards, that our values and personal boundaries have been violated.

The next day, Jobs stormed into the Apple office. He was not calm. He was screaming. He wasn't enraged by the engineer himself; he was enraged by the falseness of the idea itself. "God gave us ten styluses—our fingers! Why do we need another one? Nobody wants that damn stick!" he raged.

It was at this moment that alchemy happened. The energy of destruction transformed into an act of creation. Jobs' anger shattered the old paradigm. He said, "Let's show them how it should really be." He forced engineers to discard everything that had been the norm for decades and create multi-touch technology.

Look at this from an evolutionary perspective. Progress is not born out of compromise. It is born out of conflict.

Steve Jobs' anger cut off the excess. He destroyed the mediator. His anger returned technology to our biology, to our nature. Because he allowed himself to get angry, we got an interface that understands us with a mere touch.

The story of the smartphone teaches us the main lesson: it doesn't matter if you feel "negativity." What matters is what you do with that energy. You can let it eat you from the inside, or you can, like Jobs, use it to create something perfect.

To learn this, you need to develop self-reflection skills. Here are a few steps on how to do this using MriyaRun tools:

Think for a moment: how many times have you used a "psychological stylus" in your interactions? That safe, plastic stick of distance? A polite smile when you wanted to scream? Silent agreement when someone brazenly crossed your boundaries? We use these "styluses"—sarcasm, coldness, excessive politeness—so we don't have to get our hands dirty with reality. So we don't feel pain. But along with the pain, we lose the flavor of life itself.

Your anger, your indignation, your passion—these are your "fingertips" on the screen of life. This is the instrument of direct influence. It is the electricity that flows through you and forces the world to respond. Do not be afraid to touch reality with "bare hands." Yes, sometimes you might get burned. But this is exactly how—through direct contact, through an honest "No" and a passionate "Yes"—history is made. Both technological history and your personal one.

We will see that envy is not a vice, but a marker of our true desires, showing where we want to be. That anger is not aggression, but a powerful engine that helps us tear down walls hindering development.

Throw away the stylus. Stop poking at life with the plastic sticks of fear. Feel it by touch. It is worth it. Do not be afraid of your emotions. Explore them. Visit our Catalog of Tools and choose helpers for this journey.

Let's turn competition and conflict into creating a new world where, instead of a war of styluses, we arrive at synergistic relationships. Welcome to the world of your emotions.