Chase exhaled in delight at the feeling of being off of his feet. The nagging pain in his leg gradually subsided as he collapsed into his chair between Avery and Hollian.
Nathan stood and walked to the front of the room to address everyone, but Darcia preempted him by turning to Chase and asking, "Your assertion is that greed triggered our anger?"
Chase gently massaged the sore area on his leg and replied, "Yeah, I think so. Greed, envy, whatever. Before 2009 you seemed fine. But that decade was pretty significant for us in terms of technology—especially with the breakthroughs in mobile tech. According to Gavin we passed you up, despite your head start. If that's true then it may have created a negative feeling within you; perhaps some emotion which had been at bay for so long that that you didn't know how to handle it."
"Interesting," Darcia mumbled.
Nathan shook his head in disagreement and said, "But how could that happen if we've already mastered those feelings?"
"I don't know," Chase shrugged. "I'm still a little fuzzy on how you mastered them to begin with. But I'll tell you this—people can become more pissed off from a perception of unfairness than almost anything else."
"That makes no sense, Chase," Nathan said.
Darcia raised her hand toward Nathan and looked at Chase intently, "No, this is interesting. Remember that indigena have a much greater understanding of negative emotion then we do." She tilted her head slightly and asked, "Can you expound on that, please? What exactly do you mean?"
"Well, perception isn't real," Chase explained. "It's a thought or feeling based on a sense of unfairness, which isn't really rooted in reality."
"I still don't follow," she said. "Why is it not rooted in reality?"
Chase thought for a moment and said, "Think of two scenarios. In one, you walked around this room and slapped everyone across the face. And in the other, you only slapped Nathan across the face. In both scenarios Nathan was slapped, but in the second one he would be much more annoyed. That's why it's not real; he was slapped equally hard in both instances."
Darcia frowned thoughtfully and said, "Your contention is that the imbalance of equal punishment for all would escalate Nathan's anger?"
"Sort of. It's more than just the punishment itself," Chase explained. "It's the disparity. It works with rewards just the same. If you passed out gold watches to everyone except Nathan, he would be more annoyed than if you passed out nothing, even though in both instances he got nothing."
Neither Darcia nor Nathan responded. They seemed lost in thought, perhaps confused at the concept, or perhaps unable to grasp a scenario where someone would be skipped like that.
Chase added, "Let's try this example. You're waiting in line at a store—no, better yet you are on the road, in a traffic jam. We've all been there. The cars in front of you are stopped, and you become annoyed because now you will be late. Now imagine the lane to your right begins to move, but you don't. This continues for another minute, they are really moving fast now, but you are still stopped. Your annoyance will escalate exponentially."
"That's only because you are going to be late," Nathan said. "There is nothing remarkable there."
"You're missing the point," Chase said. "Think of two separate scenarios. In either you are going to arrive at your destination exactly thirty minutes late. The only difference is that in scenario one the lane to your right is just as stuck as you are, and in scenario two the lane to your right is moving much faster than you—and you can't lane change. In both examples you are equally late, but in the second one you are going to be much more upset. Logically it doesn't make sense because you are equally late either way, which is why it's a perceived problem and not a real one."
