It occurred to me today that one of the great challenges I face sometimes is not being too angry.
Anger can be useful — it can motivate, it can focus, and can drive — but it seems to me that there are so many things out there in the world (not just in my life and immediate surroundings, but in the world outside) to be angry about, that it can go beyond motivating and focusing and driving, and spill into the world of stark, raving fury at humanity.
I mean, there is so much evil, willful stupidity, malice, self-righteousness, hypocrisy, greed, betrayal, fraud, laziness, manipulation, agendas, conspiracies, impoliteness, plots, deceit, game-playing, and just plain nastiness out there, that it can, if I let it, drive me … nuts.
And I really don’t want to be one of those people who run around frothing at the mouth all the time over things. I want to be happy. I want people around me to be happy. I don’t want to be blithely ignorant and all Doctor Panglossy — but I cannot afford to let everything that could make me angry actually make me angry.
“If you aren’t outraged,” the bumper sticker says, “you aren’t paying attention.” But I can only be so outraged so long. I can only let the world push my buttons so much. I can only pay so much attention to what’s out there without what’s in here suffering. I can’t let the bastards grind me down, as another bumper sticker says.
If I’m shouting and glowering more than I’m smiling and laughing, it’s not a good thing, for me or for the world. Or so it seems to me.
I agree.
The problem with being angry is that it isn’t, of itself, creative. It’s a way of saying “no” or “bad” or “not that.” You could spend your whole life bouncing from one end of the spectrum to the other, anger at something driving you toward something else, which (because nothing is perfect) may drive you back to your original direction…one of the reasons Satanism is a waste of time. The opposite of injustice isn’t justice, it’s happiness. We need justice, but it doesn’t really solve anything.
I say enjoy the pleasures in life in such a way as to spread the joy around. Good company, good books, good food, and generosity of spirit go far to disenfranchise the things that really piss me off.