Anger could also indicate a desire for freedom from the long-lasting patterns of life. It is as if there is a spirit bottled up that doesn't want any longer to be caught in daily trivia, doesn't want to be in a body on this earth. Then the irritability expresses a frustration at having to be here and at waiting so long to leave. My friend, Professor Malidoma Some, an initiated elder, says that among his people in Burkina Faso the old ones are generally angry and ill-tempered, irritated by the banalities of the daily round. Part of them is already elsewhere, departed. Their irritation signifies that departure.
— James Hillman, The Force of Character