Warren Bull's Blog

About Anger by Warren Bull


Writers often depict characters who lose control of their anger as well as characters who manage it well. So what is anger and how is it controlled? Read on.

Stuff ? Vent? Count to ten? Stuffing it is sometimes a good idea for the short term when expressing anger would be counterproductive. No matter what you’ve heard, venting does not dissipate the emotion unless there are changes in whatever caused the anger. Counting is the best choice if we count slowly and use the time to analyze the emotional situation. Let me explain.

Fear, sadness, happiness and anger (and possibly surprise and disgust) are called primary emotions. These emotions are instinctive and automatic, which means they happen to us before we can think about them.

It’s not hard to see how an automatic reaction would be a good thing for an early human. As an example, lets talk about fear, when confronted by a giant bear or a saber-tooth cat some stopped to ponder, “Hmm that beast looks hungry. Perhaps I should contemplate removing myself from the immediate surroundings. Yes I believe so. I shall depart.” Those people often became the predator’s lunch. Others reacted immediately and became our ancestors. Basic emotions are hard-wired into us.

Anger is very useful when it is the first emotion experienced. It’s a sign that something serious is happening. Anger can be described as a feeling of antagonism directed at someone we believe has wronged us deliberately and unjustly by taking something away from us. What is being taken is not necessarily an object. Accusations or humiliation may hurt our reputations or self-esteem.

However anger also occurs as a secondary emotion. When we experience a degree fear or sadness that leaves us feeling vulnerable, anger may pop up next. Anger is less painful than the primary emotion but it is seldom helpful in resolving the events or issues that caused the emotional response. In my experience, temper tantrums and screaming rarely persuade another person to adopt my point of view.

So, after taking a moment to identify which emotion is primary, I conclude that I am feeling scared and vulnerable. What can I do to reduce the risk? Can I ask for advice? Can I start over? Is this a situation where anyone would feel a bit out of control? Identifying the basic emotion allows me to take effective actions toward diminishing discomfort.

For example, the first time my wife and I visited a particular church we felt ignored during a social time after the service. I interpreted my growing annoyance as feeling like an outsider. I approached someone and introduced myself, which helped with the real concern and my anger quickly faded away.

What if anger is my primary feeling? I can run a quick check on what’s causing the anger. Am I actually being wronged? Is the other person behaving intentionally and unjustly? Am I at risk of losing something?

Another example, when I started a new job, I was instructed to meet with people throughout the organization to learn about all the different services available for clients. When I went to meet with one supervisor he kept me waiting for close to an hour in the waiting room. It gave me the chance to get really steamed up.

When the supervisor finally appeared, he apologized, saying he lost track of how long I had been waiting. He said he thought my having to meet with him was a waste of time for both of us since I would not be working in his program.

Was my anger justified? Yes. The other person had wronged me. He wasted my time. Did I get angry? Yes at first but I concluded that anger might be detrimental. By the time I saw him I had decided not to express anger.

It certainly helped that the supervisor immediately apologized, which served to acknowledge the validity of my anger. However, I would have been calm even if he had not. I wanted to stay on good terms with him. I also knew he would talk with my new boss. If I exploded in anger at the supervisor, my new boss would hear about it. As it turned out, later on the supervisor became my boss and we developed an excellent work relationship.

In a different job, I did express my anger. Without telling me, my supervisor decided to move me to a less desirable office. I worked there part-time and a new full-time person had been hired. So the move was absolutely justified. I did not get angry about the move. I got angry about how the move was done. I showed up for work and the new person was already in “my office.” From the new hire, I learned I had been moved. I went to the supervisor and said something along the lines of. “I’m really angry with you for not telling me I was being moved to a different office. I worked here the entire day yesterday so there was plenty of time for you to come to me and explain. Leaving the explanation up to the new person, I think, was unfair to her and to me too. It seems to me to be a rather cowardly way to act. That’s all I have to say.” Then I went to where I was assigned and started to work.

The supervisor did not respond. I didn’t need him to. I expressed my anger. I was satisfied. There were no negative consequences.

I expressed myself with “I” statements. I offered my opinion, not stating anything as a fact. I did not ask for an apology. (Apologies are mostly beneficial to the person who apologizes but that’s another article.) With a different supervisor, I might have chosen other words to describe of his behavior.

So that’s the twenty-five cent guided tour of anger. It is sometimes a very useful emotion. However, when it covers up the primary feeling, it can get in the way of recognizing the real underlying issue. Please feel free to let me know what you think and ask any question that occurs to you.

Revisiting Rosa Parks by Warren Bull

Image from The Guardian

Rosa Parks is sometimes viewed as the tired seamstress who happened to refuse to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in December of 1955 that sparked a boycott that ultimately succeeded in getting the city to end racial segregation on buses.
In fact, that perception does not do justice to Parks, a determined life-long activist. She didn’t just happen to give up her seat. She was selected to challenge segregation laws by NAACP organizers. At the time of her arrest, she was secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP. She worked with a new minister in town, Martin Luther King, Jr., Edgar Nixon, president of the chapter of the NAACP and other leaders.

During her childhood, bullying by white children, watching the Klu Klux Klan march by her house and seeing white children ride by in school buses, to a closer and better school than the only one she was allowed to attend, made awareness of racism inescapable. Parks attended school until age eleven. She then started at a laboratory secondary school, since there was not a public secondary school open to African American students. She was forced to drop out to care for her ill grandmother and later for her mother. In 1932 she married Raymond Parks, a barber. Her husband was a member of the NAACP. He helped raise money to defend the Scottsboro Boys against false charges of rape. He urged her to return to school and she finished high school in 1933. At that time fewer than 7% of African Americans had a high school diploma.

She was not the first person to resist bus segregation. Bayard Rustin took a similar stance in 1942. Irene Morgan in 1946, Lillie May Bradford in 1951 and earlier in 1955 Claudette Calvin, Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald and Mary Louise Smith all took on the segregation law. In 1956 the United States District Court for the Middle Division of Alabama heard the case of Browder v. Gayle and ruled that bus segregation is unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment. Upon appeal, the United States Supreme Court affirmed the decision. Like other Civil Rights victories, several people over many years worked persistently toward the goal.
Her act of defiance and the boycott became symbols of the Civil Rights Movement. Parks was honored late in her long life, but she paid a hefty price for her actions. She was fired from her job five weeks after the boycott started. Her husband was fired a few weeks later. She developed ulcers from the stress. Unable to find steady work, they moved to Detroit with the help of relatives living there. Threats against her life continued for years.

Parks described Detroit as the “Northern promised land that wasn’t.” Although signs of segregation were no longer public, housing, school and job discrimination were rampart. Police brutality was a fact of life.

She and Raymond as well as her mother stayed on and off with her brother, his wife and their 13 children in a three-bedroom wood-frame house on Deacon Street. Parks worked out of town for 15 months to save money, but she missed her family and returned.
In 1955 they ran through her savings of $1,300 quickly. Decent housing for African Americans was rare. The waiting list for public housing for African-Americans was 6,000 families deep although white families rarely had to wait. Most white people refused to rent or sell to African Americans. The few that did demanded exorbitant fees for sub-standard places. The Parks’ income for 1955 was $661. They made ends meet in part with food grown in her brother’s garden.

An interviewer in 1960 describer Parks as a “tattered rag of her former self — penniless, debt-ridden and ailing with stomach ulcers.”
In July 1959 Rosa, Raymond and her mother moved into a two-room apartment at the Progressive Civic League. They took care of the building in exchange for lower rent. In 1961 the Parks were able to rent the ground floor of a brick flat Rosa described as located in “just about the heart of the ghetto.” She was able to find a job doing piecework sewing and Raymond found a barbering job. For 40 years Parks took part in advocating for jobs and school desegregation while opposing police brutality. The Parks never owned the place they lived in.

Recognition for what she did in Montgomery, did nothing to lessen the difficulties she faced in Detroit.









In 2016 Ryan Mendoza, an American artist living in Germany in concert with Parks’ niece Rhea McCauley saved the house on Deacon Street from scheduled demolition. He had it packed into crates, shipped and then he reconstructed it in Berlin. The Nash Family Foundation in Manitowoc, Wisconsin has committed $45,000 to return the house to the United States.



Maybe the house will offer the opportunity for all of us to give up the image of a tired woman on a bus and embrace the reality of an activist who won one battle at a high personal cost but never settled for that. Without fanfare or public notice she continued struggling for the still far from attained greater goal of racial equality.

How Like An Angel by Margaret Millar: A Review By Warren Bull

By the time How Like An Angel was published (1962) the author had already won an Edgar for her novel Beast in View. She was named Grand Master by Mystery Writers of America. Ed Gorman described he work as ..”too good for the mass market.”

Broke, unemployed and alone, Joe Quinn is dropped off in the desert with a path to follow that leads toward a religious commune called the Tower. Addicted to gambling despite his inevitable losses, Quinn is not the sort of guy to get tangled up in other people’s problems. However, when Sister Blessing offers one hundred and twenty dollars in cash for Quinn to find out if a man named Patrick O’Gorman still lives in a town nearby, he accepts the offer with no idea what making inquiries will set off.

How Like An Angel is compelling, suspenseful novel that surprises as it depicts human motivation, obsession, love and hate. Belief versus doubt plays out in the town as well as in the commune.

This is a well-written study of the human condition in addition to being a truly satisfying mystery. I am glad to be able to recommend it highly.

Scarcity versus Abundance

I’ve noticed a number of people discussing the contrast between thinking in terms of scarcity and thinking in terms of abundance. Even for high achieving people, often there is a lack of a reference or a measuring tool that can be used to see how well a person is doing. It’s easy to start comparing what we have with what someone else has. We might adopt a zero-sum point of view. That is like a poker game where to win means taking chips away from someone else and to lose means that another person has taken chips that used to be yours.

Sometimes resources are truly limited so the scarcity idea of the world is helpful. For example, living in a desert or where everyone scrounges for food, finding water and food is necessary for survival. Eating a prickly pear now before another person does would make sense for personal survival. In a situation of rampant uncontrolled inflation we might spend our paychecks as soon as possible before their value declines. Achievement by others can lead us toward legitimate sadness and regret because their gain is our loss.

Luckily situations like that are rare for most of us. Except for extreme situations, thinking in terms of abundance makes life more satisfying and relaxed. Knowing there is plenty of food and we will be able to eat later, makes it easier to avoid cramming the last cookies down our throats when we are already full.
Thinking in terms of abundance, we can look at long-term life and financial planning. It may make sense to postpone a vacation to be able to save money toward buying a new car.

With abundant thinking it is easier to feel good when someone else succeeds when we realize that his or her success does not in any way diminish our chances to advance. Maybe we can learn from another’s success to facilitate our own.

As a writer, I sometimes find myself pushing for what I would like to do. When I stop to recognize and enjoy what I have already done, I feel better about myself. I am more relaxed and realistic about the future.

Engaging in cooperative ventures builds relationships. Skipping ads, which are designed to push the idea of scarcity, can help keep things in proportion. Comparisons to others can let the scarcity idea creep in. The comparisons are very rarely realistic. No two people face identical obstacles or have identical opportunities. When losses happen, as they inevitably will, we may be able to learn from them and find some positive aspects from the experiences that will help us in the future.

Attending a conference for clinical psychologists some years ago, I heard, “I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind but now I see.” coming from an adjacent room in the events center where a group of Presbyterians were meeting. Their music provided a lovely background for a new field of scientific inquiry called — forgiveness.
Psychologists talked about it while churchgoers sang about it. Researchers might have joined the party a few centuries late, but I was happy psychology arrived at all.

The presenter said he recently had an insight that many of us might disagree with. However, he was willing to risk sharing his new finding anyway. He said he now believed every person, no matter how damaged, can be helped. He also believed every person, no matter how damaging that person has been to others, has the potential to change and ultimately become a healthy and caring individual.

Forgiveness and repentance; what will psychologists discover next?
Let me be clear. Forgiveness does not mean staying in an environment or a relationship that is dangerous. It does not mean


pretending events did not happen. If there are legal consequences for the person who injured us, we can forgive and, at the same time, assist the legal authorities. If someone harmed us, that someone might harm someone else. Forgiveness does not mean that the perpetrator escapes facing the consequences of harming another person. I truly believe that in the long run everyone receives what he or she dishes out to others.

Forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves. Taking the burden of resentment off our shoulders means not allowing injury in the past determine how we live now. We cannot change what happened. We can determine what we do in the present and what we will do in the future.

Forgiveness is taking an action for the forgiver, not the forgiven. In other words, let go. And then let God.

Ghost Story?

This might be a ghost story. There was nothing unusual about the beginning. A woman came to the agency I was working for asking for therapy. She described her life history. It was clear that she had a terrible life mostly due to her continuing illicit drug use. She said she had tried repeatedly but could not stop using.

All of her children except the youngest had been taken away due to her drug use. As the result of a legal hearing, she was subject to unannounced urine testing with the understanding that if she tested positive again, her youngest child would be removed from her home. She was on the verge of losing her job. She hated her boss. But she needed the income the income her job provided. Her work attendance had been erratic. On Mondays she was often so hung over that she could not work. Also, her car was old and unreliable. She lived in public housing in a dangerous building in the worst part of town. She had applied for a transfer to safer housing years earlier but the waiting list had hundreds of names on it. Feeding her addiction left her with barely enough money to buy food.

After listening to the recital of problems, I asked why she wanted therapy now. The problems she mentioned were chronic. I knew there had to be an immediate reason for her to come in. After some hesitation she said one of her sons had approached her about two months ago after years of refusing to see her. He told her she had been a terrible mother, leaving her children in jeopardy when she went off to get drugs, being too stoned to take care of them and disappearing for days when she binged. He said he loved her anyway and he wanted to help her get off drugs. They started talking. She felt hope for the first time in many years. Then he was shot and killed, an innocent victim of a drive-by shooter targeting someone else.

I said that was truly terrible. And I asked again, “So why come in now?”

“It’s my dead son,” she said. “Every night he stands over me, not saying a word. I know he hates me and blames me for everything he had to go through.”

I asked if he had done anything like that when he was alive. She said no, on the contrary, he’d been loving and supportive. He was seriously trying to help her get clean.

I said, “I wonder why he has changed so much just because he died. He hasn’t said anything. He might be there for the same reasons he restarted contact with you when he was alive. Do you want to invite him to join us in the office so you can ask him?” She refused and stormed out of my office.

At the next appointment she said “I asked my son why he came to see me. He told me he still loves he. He wants to help me.” She said he insisted that she had to stop using drugs. Night after night he said the same thing. Eventually she wore down, promised to cut back and finally gave him a date in the future when she would stop using entirely.

Then things started happening. The housing office called to offer an apartment in a safer place. Out of the blue, her sister called her to say she and her husband had bought a new car. Did my client want their old car? She started to show up to work on time, not hung over and she got a lot more done. She was no longer threatened with being fired. After some time she got so annoyed at her boss for putting her down that she told him off. To her surprise, he stopped insulting her.

She kept her promise to her son to stop using. He continued to show up, encouraging her and acknowledging the changes she made.

She met the goals she set for herself and graduated from therapy.

Please note: in this account I have simplified events and condensed the time frame, but it is entirely truthful.

I never saw her son. So, was her son a ghost? Was he angel? Was he an auditory and visual hallucination? Part of her mourning process? Or was his love for his mother so strong that a little thing like dying made no difference?

The Case of the Hesitant Hostess by Erle Stanley Gardner: A review by Warren Bull

In the interest of full disclosure I hereby admit this is the first novel by Erle Stanley Gardner that I have ever read. I have, however, seen at least a dozen black and white television episodes of the series Perry Mason that starred Raymond Burr as the famous attorney.

The Case of the Hesitant Hostess was first published in 1953. From reading it I can understand why the author was so popular. He had honed his skills by writing for the pulps. He was successful at churning out and selling tales that made up in action for what they lacked in character development.
In the novel I read Perry Mason was as much hard-boiled investigator as he was an attorney. The plot zings along as the hero risks life and limb to defend an indigent client who was set up to take the rap for crimes he did not commit. I am certain the standards of practice of defense attorneys has changed from the time the novel was written. So perhaps back then there were fewer blatant violations that would result in a lawyer being disbarred than the half dozen or so that I noticed.


The author wrote to entertain and to make money. This is definitely entertaining. I started and finished reading in one day. I recommend it as entertainment.

“No act of kindness no matter how small is ever wasted.” Aesop.

Did you know that Darwin believed that kindness and care for others was the result of evolution? He’s often associated with “survival of the fittest” but that is an over-simplistic view of his work. He also considered how positive kindness is for humankind.

What We Know About Kindness

We know that kindness is contagious. We are more likely to be kind to others after someone has been kind to us. So the idea of setting off a wave of kindness by random acts of kindness is more than a fuzzyheaded supposition.

We also know that acting on the impulse when the impulse is to be kind encourages more kindness. The old idea of breaking bread together has scientific validity since activities around a feast lead to more togetherness. Awareness of natural phenomena or something else awesome takes us out of ourselves and reminds us that a universe centered on a single person is a tiny and restricted one.
It is not surprising that gentle touch and kind words also give rise to kindness.

Authors Writing About Different Subjects Include Kindness

Ta-Neshisi-Coates In Between the World and Me wrote to his son about choosing kindness over fear. Carl Sagan in The Demon-Haunted World discussed responding to ignorance with compassion. Anne Lamott described kindness and forgiveness as the basis of self-esteem in Hallelujah Anyway Rediscovering Mercy.

My Experiences

I was a clinical psychologist for thirty years. I’m happy to say that when I meet former clients the word they use most to describe what they experienced from me is kindness.
Twice I have received a bone marrow transplant that reduced my immune system to that of a newborn child. I did not have the strength to go to the bathroom. I had a catheter and an adult commode next to the bed. I often lost track of time. Staying alive was a struggle. I was never suicidal but I would not have minded dying. They were the two worst periods of time in my life,

The few best memories I have of those times are of kindness. For example, once in a cancer center a clerk (non-medical staff) brought me a blanket when I was shivering, experiencing uncontrolled diarrhea and feeling absolutely miserable. I’m sure delivering blankets was not in her job description. I don’t know if she remembers the event but I will never forget it.

I believe my wife had a tougher time than I did. Her willingness to help me thorough weeks when I was nearly helpless still amazes me. I am alive because of her, her devotion and her kindness.

Hand In Glove by Ngaio Marsh: A Review by Warren Bull



Originally published in 1962, Hand In Glove is the twenty-second novel by the author featuring Superintendent Roderick Alleyn of new Scotland Yard. Marsh wrote thirty-three mystery novels and published as late as the early 1980s.

In this novel there are a noblewoman with a reputation for throwing wild parties and changing husbands, a angry young lord with bizarre ideas and a man who sends a letter of condolence one day before the death of the subject of the letter. These characters, however, are not as interesting as the detective who, like many of the suspects, is a member of the upper class.

Marsh’s observations of the upper class and their foibles is implicit in this novel. Her continuing command of the English language and of the elements of a mystery are evident. A review in The New York Times notes, “She writes better than Christie.” A good argument could be made for that review.

All in all this is a well-written mystery that plays fair with readers. It is also, in my opinion, not her best writing. I recommend it highly, but if you want to read just one of Marsh’s novel, this is probably not the best choice.

Murder Must Wait by Arthur W. Upfield: A Review by Warren Bull



Originally published in 1953, Murder Must Wait is one of the novels featuring the “half-caste” Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte. As usual the author provides a novel where Australia is as much of a character as any person portrayed.

The Inspector, Bony to his friends, is asked to investigate a series of kidnapping. Four infants in a small town have disappeared. A police task force from the police headquarters has been unable to find any clues. When Bony is asked to investigate, he requests a particular assistant. First Constable Alice McGorr. Although they have never met, the inspector has heard about her and determined that she the perfect fit for the job.

When another abduction apparently includes murder of the mother, the stakes are raised even higher. Bony decides finding the infants, who are presumably alive, must be the focus of the investigation. Uncovering the killer will have to wait. In this book the author portrays the tension between police administrators who have to face political pressure and newspaper coverage and the brilliant investigator who only wants to resolve the mystery. Bony is an outsider because of his ethnicity. McGorr is a woman, which automatically makes her of lesser importance in the male-dominated police agency.


Part of the fun of this book is the interaction between two strong-willed people who have very different backgrounds. As in other novels Bony use both sides of his genetic inheritance to solve the mystery.