I had the opportunity last week to observe closely the workings of anger in me. It is very like what I imagine would be the movement of poison in my body. I mean this not as an analogy, but quite literally. Prior to the anger I was feeling clear and peaceful, so the change was that much more evident. When the anger descended on me it changed (as it seemed) my whole world.
The what and who and why of this anger doesn't much matter, nor does its justification or lack thereof. Have you noticed this? Anger is an indiscriminate toxin and has the same effect no matter how holy or unholy the triggering event.
Someone did something, then, and I reacted. I felt the surge of my righteous indignation first, and this always feels so reassuring, so powerful. I spend much of my life feeling either neutral or powerless (might as well admit it), that this adrenalin rush feels like a revelation. But it doesn't last.
Then comes that sickening feeling of the aftermath of the rush, the anger hangover which, like an actual hangover, lasts far longer than the pleasure. It is a physical as well as a psychic phenomenon, a nausea, an exhaustion, a sensation something akin to the bodily response to grief. And I know, after all, what the grief is for: I wish to be a better person than this, and have wished so for as long as I can remember. I grieve that I'm not.
And I craved. I craved sugar and warm milk and comfort and reassurance. I craved certainty and power and love and appreciation. I craved escape and clarity and unchallenged correctness. I craved fat and salt and gooeyness. I craved a solution that would make it all right.
A powerful drug, this anger.
Then it passed as if it had never been. It left a bit of destruction in its wake, though thankfully nothing like the wreckage my anger used to create. What had seemed so real and important now appeared to be a mere mirage.
I am reminded that anger is fear. I suspect there are instances where this is not so, but I have yet to come up with any. And this anger was most certainly fear. And what is the antidote to fear? Not courage, I think, though that certainly helps. I think the antidote to fear must be compassion. When I am living in my fear, my heart is closed, in a defensive crouch. If I can open my heart to the source of my fear--if only a little--the feelings dissipate and I can begin to see what I feared as the chimera it is. It is enough.
The what and who and why of this anger doesn't much matter, nor does its justification or lack thereof. Have you noticed this? Anger is an indiscriminate toxin and has the same effect no matter how holy or unholy the triggering event.
Someone did something, then, and I reacted. I felt the surge of my righteous indignation first, and this always feels so reassuring, so powerful. I spend much of my life feeling either neutral or powerless (might as well admit it), that this adrenalin rush feels like a revelation. But it doesn't last.
Then comes that sickening feeling of the aftermath of the rush, the anger hangover which, like an actual hangover, lasts far longer than the pleasure. It is a physical as well as a psychic phenomenon, a nausea, an exhaustion, a sensation something akin to the bodily response to grief. And I know, after all, what the grief is for: I wish to be a better person than this, and have wished so for as long as I can remember. I grieve that I'm not.
And I craved. I craved sugar and warm milk and comfort and reassurance. I craved certainty and power and love and appreciation. I craved escape and clarity and unchallenged correctness. I craved fat and salt and gooeyness. I craved a solution that would make it all right.
A powerful drug, this anger.
Then it passed as if it had never been. It left a bit of destruction in its wake, though thankfully nothing like the wreckage my anger used to create. What had seemed so real and important now appeared to be a mere mirage.
I am reminded that anger is fear. I suspect there are instances where this is not so, but I have yet to come up with any. And this anger was most certainly fear. And what is the antidote to fear? Not courage, I think, though that certainly helps. I think the antidote to fear must be compassion. When I am living in my fear, my heart is closed, in a defensive crouch. If I can open my heart to the source of my fear--if only a little--the feelings dissipate and I can begin to see what I feared as the chimera it is. It is enough.
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