The Important Purpose of Anger
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Dear Community,
As much as I try to distance myself from the news, this week was unavoidable. I’ve noticed when I experience bad news, I let anger hold me for a minute and then I get scared.
But this week, I want to talk about how it’s time to rage.
TOOLS
It’s been said that anger is the antidote to despair. And yet, I think that those of us that believe in civil rights, equality, and social-emotional learning… just tend to be quieter. We don’t want to be loud and crass. We don’t want to scare people. We don’t want to be like those other people. We think the thing to do is to suppress our rage.
Rage intimidates. But repressed rage eats up our insides. But we crumble under the weight of it all. And instead of rage, we think fear is more socially acceptable. And fear can mobilize because you can be the person who fights from a place of fear. But you can also, more often, be the person who freezes, flees, and fawns.
But for as long as I’ve known it, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. And for the last few years, an extreme subset of a once well-respected and reserved political party is the loudest. Their voices scare us. We worry about repercussions if we fight back.
Our paralyzing fears are being exploited as other people fight hard with their anger.
And in that fear, we may be looking for alternatives. How do I escape? How do I protect? Shelter? How do I avoid the pain? How do I flee and freeze because fighting doesn’t feel like something I should do.
And yet, there is a time for anger. Anger confronts the pain. It embraces hard work. It doesn’t retreat. It invigorates. It does not shy away, isolate or shelter in place. Anger MOVES us. Fear stuns and divides us.
Anger is a tool that isn’t just for the most extreme. Anger can be a way to express ourselves, move once again, and shake off the paralyzing fear.
GRATITUDE
I’ve noticed how my own fear is not working. My fear has enabled others’ anger to move things in a direction that I am so mad about. I cannot keep ruminating over how to seek out visas to New Zealand or parts of the country (or state) that I can shelter in. That’s cowardly. I must confront the scary. I must stand up. I must rage.
My friend yesterday lovingly (and I was so grateful for it) showed me that I’m trying to snowplow for my kids. I’m trying to find the best environments for them to thrive, to be safe from bigotry, and bullying, and where they can flourish with freedom and safety. My fear is pushing me to isolate and find (or create!) an insular system so that maybe then they’ll never have to feel pain.
Ah, it’s funny huh? I talk about how we must experience pain and discomfort as inherent parts of life and here I am doing all I can to not allow my kids to feel that.
My friend then asked, “but wait, haven’t you embraced trust, risks, and pain in your business?”
And I responded, “You’re right. It’s because I trust myself to manage the pain”.
Then I realized. I don’t trust my kids yet. I don’t trust the people around them to keep them safe. I don’t trust the WORLD to protect them. I am terrified of this scary future.
And, I don’t trust in their resilience. F*ck.
INNOVATION
You see, instead of doing something to fight back, I have spent thousands of hours figuring out another way. Another way to live, another way to respond, another way to maintain my peace. I’ve been fleeing.
And I know it’s because of this deep, deep fear: I am afraid for my children’s future. It’s that simple. I’m afraid their lives will look very different than mine and be without the opportunities I had, the freedom we have, the kindness of humanity, and safety.
Ah, but again I must recognize my privilege. Like I said last week, white folks are having a disproportionately more difficult time with climate change because this is the first very real threat to their survival. War too. War certainly makes all of us feel scared and vulnerable. But our BIPOC friends have been living afraid for their children’s future forever.
“Death was always possible, but some deaths we’d had time to prepare for—after a wrong turn down the wrong dark road, or whistling at a white woman. That’s what death had looked like for us before. The act of registering Black people to vote and the quest to dismantle the American power structure made us feel a different kind of terror. We were going to change the country, after all, and that meant we were going to face coordinated, organized, directed murder.” —David Dennis Jr
They fight. They get mad. They demand change. They cannot be paralyzed by their fear because then nothing would change.
They’ve raged in order to dismantle the American power structure.
And now, it feels, like there is a group of extremists wanting to dismantle everything generations past have worked so hard for the last 80 years.
FEELS
And yet. I received this email today,
“In all tests of character, Kerry, when two viewpoints are pitted against each other, in the final analysis, the thing that will strike you the most is not who was right or wrong, strong or weak, wise or foolish… but who went to the greater length in considering the other's perspective.” —Mike Dooley, TUT
Anger is only useful when we do not require a winner and a loser. Anger cannot only be fueled by vindication, redemption, retaliation, revenge, or justice. Anger must be channeled to be sensible, productive, and intentional.
Because there are always two sides. Personal freedom vs collective morality is subjective. For some, it’s wearing masks and being vaccinated and for others, it’s abortion, sex reassignment surgery, and marrying whomever you want. For some, it’s a combination of any of those things and it’s important to recognize that. Because again, fear likes to put us in boxes so we can best protect ourselves.
I choose to use my anger to demand more love in this world. I want to hold someone’s hands and look them in the eye and discuss, “What are you so afraid of? Me too. I’m scared for the future too. I’m worried too. But is this the way? Is fighting each other the way out of this pain? Can we agree that this is all scary?”
I’m fantasizing about an ideal world, I know. But I do hope we can unite over our fears and instead of turning against each other, we can figure out a way to use our collective fear to fight for a better world for all. Because we all should be angry. This is not a way to live. This is not okay. We’re tearing our country apart.
We all should be angry enough to at least unite over climate change, our democracy, and peace.
So, I’m going to befriend my anger.
What am I mad about? What fills me with rage?
From there, I need to stop being antagonistic and instead be courageous.
From courage, I share my truth.
From courage, I share my vulnerabilities.
From courage, I act with intention and compassion.
From courage, I can be useful to teach my kids how to overcome instead of desperately trying to protect them.
From courage, I stop living in fear and instead live with trust, hope, and understanding.
From courage, I take my rage and do something good with it.
Say “bye” to fear. It’s not serving us. See your anger’s purpose and channel it into the courage to listen, educate and express. Then, hopefully, someday we can unite most of us so we can all have a better future here in our own country.
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