Anger is an Energy
A 'visioning' exercise I participated in, during a two day Transition Town training a couple of years ago, finally woke me up to the fact that I, (and we) are being robbed daily a fundamental birthright – self determination. In no way ‘other’ the vision I received simply presented a scene in the street in which I live in South West London, England. In it the street was filled with people sitting on the walls talking, others were tending cropping plants on the pavement verges, children playing with each other in the road whilst a clean air blew and a warm sun shone. There were no cars lining the kerbs and no passenger jets passing over head -- the overall impression was of a friendly neighbourhood living in peace and acceptance; a hippy wet dream?
When I awoke, I felt rage.
As an adult I’ve always been confused by the way everybody acts like paying taxes, buying stuff and being committed to the notion of economic ‘growth’ is some kind of biological default for the human organism. Similarly, I am uncomfortable with the word ‘consumer’; it elicits blind mouths gaping in the dark, waiting for their next fill – thoughtless and blind, parasites in a frenzy of feeding. You could say I was aware that disharmony was built into our Western way of life, but it was only that vision that finally showed me that it was entirely needless.
Ecologists, New Yorkers, parents, Londoners, poets, Parisians, anti-war activists, lovers, minorities, musicians, cyclists and seekers of all castes, I call on you now. You’re all familiar, and by now adept at expressing, what I’m feeling: indignation! How come I can’t jump out of this car as it races towards the edge of a cliff? Frustration; we’re still pretending that our children are actually going to inherit a semblance of the ‘prosperity’ we have now? Fury; the power to actually halt the trashing of the planet and the rush to new and more inhumane war seems curiously denied by our permitted circumstances.
They say anger occurs because the world fails to conform to your expectations, but what about protecting the expectations of those who don’t exist (or exist yet) within those confines? Besides, I’ve spent my life attempting to transcend the confines I was born into; it’s been an occasionally lonely realisation and, unless I’m misreading all the signs, the stories, the reports, the taskforce conclusions, the data, things look terrible for life on this planet like never before. It’s sometimes easier to believe that aliens actually have landed, usurped the echelons of power and finance and are sucking everything dry until they get to zoom out of here without a care, than trying to make sense of the crazy fact that profit appears to entitle some humans to crap on their (and your) dinner plate!
Of course, we all know participating in media fixations on any issue is as self-defeating as playing regular lottery numbers -- it traps you into obsessional behaviour and hangs your resolve out to dry. Entanglement is understandable when there’s no shortage of tales of human degradation, environmental catastrophe and ludicrously myopic corporate irresponsibility spewing from every screen across the land; who wouldn’t ask ‘what am I supposed to do about it?’ when faced with such a perilous, and unremitting, tide of bad vibes? But surely its way too late in the game to carry on being a spectator to this meltdown?
I’m talking Wat Tyler more than Che Guevara but it seems to me that when it comes to something upon which we all depend, and should respect, being abused until it’s barely recognisable, by any moral standard aren’t we obliged to step in (in case you’re wondering I’m referring to both planet and people)? If your mother was being slapped around, bruised and punched you’d intervene, right? Regardless of the fact that most of us have a hard time assessing the immanency of events, or can be easily distracted by ever more ‘bread and circuses’ and techno gee-whiz, the ongoing environmental and worldwide war crimes against life can surely be no longer denied. Even if you’re sceptical about ‘global warming’, ‘peak oil’ or the contrivance of eternal conflict, there’s still quite a variety of serious and catastrophic issues to be tackled. Anyway, I’d prefer it if we avoided flicking the switch to yet another bloody revolution when inevitable collapse occurs, and use what we already know to light the fuse on a controlled explosion, find allies, stand up together and forget about this propaganda/ blame game we’re currently paralyzed with.
You’ve heard all the reasons why it is potentially destructive to express anger, been washed back many times by a tide of modern Western cultural psychobabble from the talk shows, trite New Age sages and self-help guides devised to persuade and assuage – and perhaps placate our ‘negative’ feelings into acquiescence. Yet my natural territorial reaction rightly remains. If you attack, or entrap, I’m going to hit back. I’m fed up with the burden of consequence forever subsumed to some gray suits need to turn a profit. I’m at the end when it comes to the monetization of everything.
But you don’t need to throw stones, as that only causes a temporary stir. The answer lies in using this vital, natural energy to change our view of the world, to reclaim reality out of our own heads, to crowbar us out of comforting inertia, to believe nothing save our own experience. You know what it is to mourn the passing of someone or something; do you think others should endure sadness and pain dropped from of a plane to protect an ideology? You’re right to live and contribute your gifts; is that something for a select few or does every form of life get a chance? Look at the headlines, what are they telling you is acceptable? Notice how received wisdom disconnects you from experience.
Your anger may have subsumed to frustration; you seem to have no specific case because the lines have been shifted so slowly that it’s difficult to locate the problem, even though its obvious there has to be many. There truly is no use in lashing out and that’s part of the plan. Those persistent few too at odds with the consensus of aggression and exploitation as de facto ‘way of life’, find themselves demonised or dismissed. Far better then to dispense with the destruction and use your red blood as fuel for something useful for a change: creating alternatives. Transition Towns, Evolver and others are already generating enough noise to be heard above the usual media drone. By adding your voice they might just catch the attention of even more people as pissed off as you and I. Together we could finally begin to transform this raw and sore emotion into something positive for all concerned.
Now, if you can be bothered, why don’t you go to the window and look out at your street. Imagine the alternatives to what you’re seeing; where did the materials out there come from, how could the ecology that created them and the people who made them be treated better? How could the resources you’re seeing be used more positively? Are you really getting the most out of your time here? Are you helping? Is anyone helping you?
Are you angry?
What are you going to do about it?
Image by mdanys, courtesy of Creative Commons license.
Tweet- 8-25-10
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I'm mad as hell...
…and I’m not gonna take it anymore!
I’ve known for a long time that this world is not at all right. I remember listening to a neighbor discipline his child next door and thinking, “That’s not how it’s done.” I was only a child myself at the time.
As an adult, I spent thirty years actively working for change, out of my love for humanity and my love for the Earth, only to discover that the change I was helping to secure was nothing more than an anthropocentric interpretation of religious myth; a great lesson in knowing your course before lifting your anchor and setting your sails.
Yet, the knowledge and the feeling I had as a child remains. The disappointment and frustration I feel toward this species is enormous, but anger is not a word I would use to describe my compassionate motivation. Anger is only a brief emotional reaction to a situation that has gotten under my skin at the moment; a chemical reaction in the reptilian brain; an obsolete chemical factory when viewed from the distant future.
While both actions can successfully move an object, I prefer to pull us, not to push us, into the future. Pushing someone to accomplish a task requires the transfer of an abundance of Fear from the teacher to the student. I don’t want there to be an over abundance of Fear haunting our distant tomorrows.
The tough drill sergeant is afraid that the recruit will be slaughtered in battle so he focuses his fear like a laser and burns that fear into the heart of the recruit. The recruit returns home after being battle tested with the misimpression that the camaraderie forged on the battlefield is Love. Fear and Love are often confused because they are two faces of the same coin.
The battle lines have been drawn. However the media interprets the battle scene; whether their sermon is political, economical, religious, or environmental, it is Fear that they are using to push us into the future. The general direction is right, but without those of us using Love to pull us into the future, it is as if they are pushing a string.
The purpose of life is to Love; to act out of Love, and not to react out of Fear. Fear is always a reaction. The only pure action is Love.
More of us need to pull on the future end of the string. In order for us to do that we must imagine; no, we must believe that we are from the future. We must believe in our heart-of-hearts that we have come back from a future motivated by the only pure action: Love.
Believe that the future, from which you have come to save the day, is a time of loving compassion, and pull with all your might!
I Hear You
Some of your statements are word-for-word what have been foremost in my mind lately, as well. For myself, I've been stuck in the frustration state, an impotent anger and confusion masking a deeper layer of despair. Your comment about received vs. experienced wisdom makes profound sense. Experience - and direct experience of intimate connection with reality, environment, other human beings, other lifeforms, the universe - should be recognized as fundamentally necessary and trustworthy for guiding our lives and our societies.
I read an article about on CNN's website about "new normals" that we must now adapt to, referring specifically to American society, such as continuously high unemployment, ongoing instability in housing markets, and the like. This could go on to include all the other catastrophic "normals" that supposedly just need adapting to for everything to be okay, apparently. That deep layer of despair in me relates to this - adaptation, or rather coping, is the only thing that seems viable, while simultaneously outwardly trying to do whatever little things can be done that give some semblance of healing the planet and healing a life, a society, a world that is lost. But this is a false mode of being, and at its root is just denial born of fear.Just recycling our plastics and paper and composting our dinner isn't cutting it, especially if on the inside we're holding onto fear and confusion, and maybe even some greed or maybe feelings of familiarity and security that our social systems give us (regardless of how unhealthy a social system's mechanisms are).
Facing this fear on a collective level would be amazing, but of course starts with an individual. If we are, like McKenna said (echoing many, many others), "ordered on the same principle as the larger universe from which we arose," we are indeed participating in Life with a big L, not just our own small individual lives. Anger can be a place to start, it seems, if allowed to activate and focus one's energy and not just lead to blind lashing out (which seems to lead to burning out, and inevitably despair).I looked up experience in the dictionary, and it gave this definition: "the process or fact of personally observing, encountering, or undergoing something." I think of Krishnamurti here who, for all his unsavory personality features mixed in with the good, brought a very important tool to light when talking about experience, particularly experiencing what is true per se. When a person is violent and wishes to be free of the violence, acting on the violence within does not free them. Not acting on the violence also does not free them, because they are repressing the violence within. So how do they get free of the violence? Unless you experience directly non-violence or peace or love or healthy interaction with an ecosystem or what the heart of fear or anger is, you don't know even if your intellect knows. That's not very scientific I guess, but it made a huge amount to me, and has recently helped me with my own confusion and fear and anger related to just how unhealthy our way of living collectively is right now, and just how willful a lot of ignorance really is on a collective scale.
hmm
Push Pull
Hi Leon, I'm reading what you wrote and I tell myself, I know, I know, but then reality strikes again. You have to be out of the hole to pull people out. Somebody has to get out first, standing on the shoulders of someone else pushing. Problem, in our modern society of capitalistic tendencies, the ones who crawl out of the hole hit the ground running, and don't throw a rope back into the hole for everyone else to get out. So another guy gets out by standing on someone's shoulders, and the same thing happens, over and again, until there's only one guy left in the hole, who can't get out, because everyone is dancing with joy outside the hole while the last poor bastard is left to rot.
Reminds me of all these miners stuck a mile down underground... would that country be making such an effort to get them out if the media hadn't latched on to the story the way they did? Probably not. The thing we never take into account is human nature. For love to conquer all, it will be a long long road... in the meantime Wall Street keeps swirling, money talks, and bullies keep jerking the meek around with hollow promises and lies. I don't mean to sound down right negative, but we have to look at first things first. If we're concerned about the health of our life support system, if we are part of this movement to "Save The Planet" like the slogan on the flag planted in your Hard Rock Cafe burgers, then we can't worry ourselves with the pace of the harmonious development of man, which may take another millennia.
We have to fix our environmental problems now, or the ecosystem is going to collapse and us with it. I don't see doing that without pushing people around. You're not going to get these Fairfield County corporate executives making millions of dollars a year give up their paychecks and their white picket fence to empower clean energy upstarts. They are going to keep doing everything they can to prevent a shift to a soft energy path. What happened, is that this peace and love and curb your anger (enthusiasm) trend, which has almost criminalized any display of frustration, has made sheep out of all of us, pacified by the controller's soma to take everything in stride and just let it be for the sake of toning down stress and tension. Remember Equilibrium with Christian Bale? I highly recommend it.
The whole green scene, which Reality Sandwich ignores, is built on people living or trying to live a green lifestyle, but because they only want to lead by example, which ain't really working, things out there are getting worse by the minute. If we want to grow the green world, we have to become a lot more aggressive and forceful about it, the way we market it, and yes, guilt and fear plays a big part in the hard sell, base instincts can't be reached any other way.
Here everyone is terrified of 2012, so you rationalize it by imagining some type of cosmic grand transition that is going to rise everyone's density to the next level, so we can all join the space brothers... that's fine, that's great, that might work for some of us who are ready to alter our chemistry, but there's 7 billion suckers out there who are still stuck in a Judeo-Christian-Buddhist-Muslim paradigm, who are completely out of touch with the rhythms of the Earth and still don't understand we're all solar powered.
Start pulling people out of the hole, stop dancing around with joy while others are still trying to get out, make a chain, that's the only way this is going to work, for as long as there's still dumb suckers at the bottom of that hole, they will do their best to drag you back down with them. This is a team effort and we need the entire human race to come together and pitch in. Don't ask us to become love bliss filled enlightened avatars, cause that ain't gonna happen.
Right now, that sentiment of global survival seems best expressed by a desire to destroy the great Satan. We're in the belly of the beast folks, and we better start acting like Alien and burst out of its chest. That's the only way to kill it, it's a suicide mission. Nobody wants to be a martyr, so we go back to our jobs on Madison Avenue feeling dandy about selling Procter & Gamble crap to mall rats. If your wife won't live in a tent with you, kick her out.
Yes
Hi Remy I’m pleased to see, by your response and others like it, that I am not the only one who understands the flaw in accepting ‘commercial’ appeasement. By that, I mean it are what we do and not what we buy or consume that will make the difference.
I think that we really need to actually ‘push the art pedal to the metal’ (McKenna) and start to mould new and resilient communities through a more authentic expression of our humanness – we should be cultivating this by seeking authenticity on our doorstep, allowing our OWN cultures (no matter what they be) to thrive – look at what Punk did in the 70’s; poor kids with no money or prospects, flicking paint, copying tapes without any recourse to what the big money was saying (who of course appropriated it all within only a few years).
To make such resolution stick though, you need viable alternatives that allow people to create and cooperate, feed their kids and pay the rent without having to feed at the capitalist trough. You need to create your own culture, own your own means of production and control credits in your community.
This essay was about getting enough steam up to begin that process.
living in a tent