I agree with you that anger is a normal human emotion, although its parent, irritation, is far more common, I think, and perhaps therefore more ‘normal’? Certainly in a general sense.
However, in-game and out of it, the inability to practice self-restraint to some degree often leads to trouble. In-game this is usually - and rather strangely - confined to verbal assaults. I give an example, from a Highsec gank recipient, quoted at the end of one of my YouTube movies and taken from an old EVEMail or maybe Local, I don’t now recall (I’ll give the link if you really want it):
Xcalybur1: “How about this, I hope your mother dies slowly, r…p…d by mentally ill convicts and left in the desert to have her face eaten by coyotes!”
Tell me, in what society of any kind (virtual or otherwise) is anger expressed in this way ‘normal’? If we look at real-life, such anger has certainly proved to be a motivator, though with outcomes not wholly indicative of the positive…
James 315 has been at pains to point out, both privately and publicly, that EVE Online is first and foremost a game. He’s actually a good example of calculated restraint. Never, in any of his published works or interview, has he ever used a single example of profanity, or even lost his rag. I should know; I’ve voiced most of it.
It seems to me that behind a great deal of anger lies insecurity and, sometimes, fear. As gankers, we counter this by instilling confidence in our trainees, and an attitude which relegates most losses to the merely trivial. Again, I’m sure this is the same for much of ag folks.
You are championing anger, justifying your position by maintaining that ‘natural’ (your ‘normal’) equals ‘good’. I’m just inserting a word of caution; that anger is hardly natural if artificially sustained and used to abuse people. A double-edged sword, I suppose.
TL:DR Salvos regards anger as a positive emotion. I note a word (or three) of caution.
