Ever notice that whenever some clown writes a truly abhorrent, asinine blog post, it ends up being the most-shared article in your Twitter or Facebook feed that day? It's annoying as a reader—and as a journalist with at least a modicum of professional interest in having stories shared—to have everyone and their mother jump out of the digital woodwork to shout "Boo this man! [link]" when there's so many superior stories worth reading every day.

Anger has a momentum that, unfortunately joy does not. We have to work at joy, but too often anger is instilled in us early on and it tends to build up inside of us. Then, it demands to be present, all the time.

I feel bad for people that are angry. The other day, I was walking out of the grocery store, running late and as I walked out the automatic doors, I accidentally cut off a woman that was walking in. I turned to her and said, "pardon me." She nodded at me with a forgiving smile and then from the other side of us I heard a man say, "pardon me my ass!"

I was taken back by his comment and thought that he must be kidding. I turned to him and said, "excuse me?"

His reply was, "fuck off."

To that I said, "I'm sorry you have so much anger." -Trust me, this was a brazen reply given how enormous the guy was. Honestly, he was looked like a retired body-builder. I'm not the biggest fella.

He didn't reply to that. In saying that, I hoped it would wake him up a bit to what was really driving him to act that way. It wasn't me cutting off that woman, it was likely years of built up anger.

The woman looked over at me and shrugged her shoulders and shook her head as if to say, I have no idea what that guy was all about. She apologized to me for his actions, which of course wasn't necessary.

But yeah, anger is much more viral than joy.

Side note: I think that Eckhart Tolle's description of the "Pain Body" is something that helped me to have empathy for such anger and to recognize it within myself.