I've written before about the need to stay angry in order to stay motivated. I gave a PTGHWAC to Greta Christina (who I recently saw quoted in the local fishwrap) for her take on anger and how it's been the most influential force in social change in history. By and large, I think she's right. Being compassionate and empathetic is all well and good, but being pissed off got Rosa Parks arrested, it started the Stonewall Riots, and I daresay it got the suffragettes picketing the White House.
The problem is that anger is corrosive. It eats you, and it cand cripple you. This happens to me periodically. I'm an angry bastard. I'm pissed off at most voters in Canada and in the US, and completely gobsmacked by nearly half of American voters (who bothered to vote), and by a little over a third of own (well, really, about 18% of Candian voters, since about half of us are pleasantly uniformed and apathetic; must be nice.) who continued to endorse clearly bankrupt ideology. Want proof? Harper claims to be a conservative, but spends more than Liberals. WTF? Nobody has told me what conservatism means anymore, except the predilection to hate brown people, commies and fags.
So I've been pissed at most voters on the continent. That's a lot of anger, and it burns me out. I cease to be motivated to do anything, because not only can I not save the world, I can't even save myself. I'm just too fucking angry, and there's nothing I can do about it.
Let it go, just relax, blah, blah, blah. I know, I know. But the problem is that when I see a problem, I like to fix it. My inability to fix it makes me madder. I wish I could stop paying attention and let it go, but wilful ignorance is the one thing I find utterly incomprehensible, baffling and infuriating.
I should write more. To do that I need to calm down. I should participate more. To do that I need to calm down. I should love, laugh and sing more. To do that, I really need to calm down.
I will start bloggin regularly again. I hope this will start my renaissance. If not, I'll still continue to riff on the news. I can't let it go, even though it's probably killing me. I'm going to stay angry.
If you're paying attention, you either go mad or get mad.
1 comment:
Agree with essentially all that you said. As for defusing the rage which drives me, well, I do a lot of writing on the blog.
Back in the old days I had an exercise bike - when I moved several thousand kms away I couldn't bring the thing with me. Used to jump on that bike just about every day.
And it worked to ease the tension. In fact, I came to couple a buildup of frustration, rage, lethargy (anger turned inward), etc. with a desire for a workout.
Have been feeling very tense, extremely angry for several months now. Wish I could get another exercise bike, but there's no way my budget can manage it.
Perhaps you might try something like it?
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