Some time ago I did a piece along the lines of “Being mad all the time, kinda makes you dumb.” It was a reflection on polarization and how everyone has been so pissed off for so long that we’ve lost our ability to see clearly. I still stand by it, for the most part. Letting yourself get blinded by rage and anger certainly isn’t helping anything. HOWEVER, more recently I’ve been actively working with anger and seeing how it can be put to good use. Dare I say, there’s a smart way to be angry.
On a suggestion from my therapist, I began a little experiment, where I would set a timer, give myself an allotted amount of time (say an hour) to be pissed off, and then move on. It’s a bit like one of those rooms you pay to go smash old TVs. I discovered I'm mad in a lot of ways that I hadn’t really been allowing myself to be.
As a Buddhisty person, there’s a certain expectation that we are to release anger and other “non-skillful” emotions and instead work on compassion and love. And fundamentally I do believe that anger/fear etc are all kind of bullshit, that is to say, they’re impermanent and illusionary in nature. I do believe that love is real, and permanent and underlies all joy and sadness. That being said-trying to just “let go” of anger is easier said than done. Particularly when people (see assholes) put your family’s stability and well-being at risk. That’s neither here nor there. The point is I sat for a long time working with compassion and metta (loving-kindness), and while it was indeed very useful, allowing myself time to just be fucking pissed off helped me actually let go. We shouldn’t run from anger, any more than we should allow ourselves to get stuck in anger. The idea is to feel what needs to be felt, do what needs to be done, and then let go. Do your best, fuck the rest.
An aside-anger can be an incredible motivator to do good things. Just make sure you don’t become some sort of a self-righteous asshole, because self-righteousness is also an illusion, and who is this fucking “self” we keep talking about anyway?
xoxo,
M
Miguel-
WOW. How does the saying that gets overused go? I really needed to hear this today.
Especially the part regarding using Anger to do good things. Hoping I'm doing just that.
But more importantly, thank you!
-tom