The Down Side of Anger

[Thanks to several recent events, and catalyzed by a Bitch, today I address anger. Get ready to ramble!]

[You may have noticed that in my paleolithic, pre-RSS way, I link to two blogs that have the word "angry" in their titles. One is the aforementioned Bitch who, while often Angry, might also be called the Hilarious, Sweet-Toothed, Vodka-Cran-Crazed, Thoughtful, Wacky, Erudite, and Touching Black Bitch. If I ever make it to St. Louis (which has been on my Someday-To-Visit list for a while thanks to another blogger I crave to meet in person), I intend to poke Smarties under her cage with a long stick.]

[The other is the most recent additon to my links list and is, of course, where Chris does his writing online when he's not contributing to Unspunblog, an exercise in collective political indignation. His blog's title hearkens to the mid-20th century British literary movement...well, it wasn't much of a "movement," since none of the ostensible participants could agree who precisely was in it and what it was about, except a rejection of what had come before (i.e., the usual impetus for any new artistic, philosophical, or political movement). Maybe calling them "The British Beats" comes closest. Chris's writing style often can be characterized as "spitty, furious hyperbole": check out his reaction to an idiotic letter to the editor of the San Francisco Examiner for a classic example.]

[That's his style, and in case you didn't get it, his style doesn't mirror his actual views. (He doesn't really believe that Cummins woman "should be soundly beaten about the head before being tossed from an airplane, fully alert, into the shark infested waters of the North Atlantic Ocean." Probably.) This hyperbole used to bother me when he used to write on Tribe until I got used to it.]

[It used to bother me because I grew up around real anger, anger that led to the dissolution of reason and opened the door to violent abuse. The anger we endured at home drove my sister and me separately to promise ourselves never to let that happen to those we loved. (I know it's odd to read that after I just praised my parents; it's been a long and twisty road.) Kate has kept that promise differently than I have, and sometimes I envy her total self-control. My record is much more spotty, but I have come out the other side deeply mistrustful of people for whom anger is the defining emotion.]

[I recognize that discontent, often expressed angrily, is a rational response to injustice, and is often the only effective impetus to change. I mean, I chose New College for a reason. But there's always been something that bothers me about slogans like "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." When I think of "outrage," I think of the mindless, endless anger that I knew as a kid, not the kind of righteous, purposeful indignation intended by the sloganeer. I think of the kind of panicky anger doesn't solve problems, but rather punches holes in walls, gives wives black eyes, and ties gay college students to fences in Wyoming, beats them, and leaves them to die in the freezing cold.]

[I've finally had to come to terms with anger, and to understand it as just another emotion that can be used or misused. These days I compare anger to a fire alarm: when used correctly, it warns us when we're being hurt, or when we're about to be hurt. It should be a cue either to stop that which is hurting us, or to understand the thing so that we can accept it. (The Serenity Prayer Principle.)]

[Too often, though, the fire alarm doesn't have an off-switch: we stay angry even after it's become clear that the thing that made us angry is no longer a threat. A good friend of mine lost both his parents before he turned ten years old, and he was raised by what sound like unpleasant relatives. In some deep way, that little boy never let go of his anger at what happened, and it's affected him terribly his whole life.]

[I had a lot of anger (and sadness) toward John, and about John-and-me, for a long time both before and after I left him. I held on to it, and hurt myself because of it. Finally, I had to let it go. The recent issues with Chris have been, to some extent, about that anger, about some other varities of anger we wield, and what to do about them. We broke up Friday night, and after a lot of what Jhames in Seattle probably would call "San Francisco relationship processing" on Saturday, have decided to give it another go.]

[So there’s your happy ending, maybe. All I really know is while I don’t want to deny anger anymore, I don’t want it to be the defining adjective as I write my life. I know what emotion I want to hold that position. Do I have to spell it out, just six days after Valentine's Day?]

[Next up: fear, the other mind-killer.]

Previously Next

[Later: Jesus, no. Except for a couple of spankings that probably hurt them more than they hurt me, neither of my parents nor any other adult laid a hand on me when I was a kid. That's not what I meant.]