Anger v Sadness

I was listening to a lecture by Panditji, and he framed the whole sadness-anger-sadness continuum from a different point of view.

I was always "taught" through therapy, spiritual study, and self-help books that the root of anger is sorrow. Panditji suggests the reverse, that if we don't have an outlet for our anger, we get depressed and give up. Without expression, our anger, which is a call to action, rajasic, movement oriented emotion, will drive us right into the state of total non-action, inertia, giving up, aka depression.

It makes sense. The anger would come from a place of self-preservation, a reaction. If anger comes from sorrow, it would mean that there is movement in sadness - some call to action, and yet, most people that i have observed, myself included, aren't really up for doing anything except mope.

So when did we start turning it around? Was it because no one wanted to deal with the strength of the force of anger so they said to "look deeper" in order to let the anger lead us into a more tamasic, inactive place where the others in the room weren't in danger of being hit by the anger? Now that's a self-preservation technique for you! Blame sadness for the anger, then we won't go looking for the anger, we'll go looker "deeper" for the sadness, which could actually be the result of unexpressed anger. That gives me some real food for thought.