Material change

Stress, rejection and anxiety can produce very real biochemical changes (including neurological damage) with extreme, and on-going, consequences (post-traumatic stress syndrome, PTSD), and within a context of social alienation, this is worse than within a context involving a supportive (loving) grouping. This we have come to accept, mostly without dealing with many of its important implications.
Being still of a barbaric, competitive (and overly punitive) society, the capitalistic system dominating at least half of our world prefers quick and short-lasting gratifications to either accepting responsibility for consequences or the individual’s status as but part of several greater wholes. This is not only immature, but dangerous – especially in light of a preponderant self-image as more mature than others, and therefore deserving of control.
To deal with these realities, we must first come to accept that no blessing comes unmixed, that nothing is purely good and involving no negative aspects. Then we must re-examine the idea of culture, re-integrate it with actual communities, and learn to accept both ourselves and others as imperfect but still deserving (although of only limited material opulence – no source of any real happiness, anyway).
Then, and only then, might we become able to deal with the angers so violently torturing us (and at least somewhat control our hatreds, jealousies, resentments and other barbaric pettinesses).