The power and glory of anger

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The power and glory of anger

Published: Fri 13 Oct 2017, 12:00 AM

Last updated: Fri 13 Oct 2017, 2:00 AM

omebody called me the other day and asked me if I would like to do an anger management course. I told him I have no anger issues, largely because I have enough things to be angry about already, especially towards people who call in the middle of a meeting and ask if you want to manage your anger.
What's the point of having anger if you manage it? Then it is no longer anger, is it? It becomes a weak, watered down whine. Anger should be full-blooded, unmanaged and full of vim and vigour. It must have impact or it does not count.
He asked me what I was angry about. Read him chapter and verse. Issues. People who invade my privacy. Bill collectors. Rudeness. Crassness. Greed. Spotting clay feet. Being let down. Finding out I have let someone down. Deceit. Wars. Attacks on children. Injustice, period, but especially that which indicts the socially weak. Racism. Violence. Nepotism. Bad drivers. Poor writing. Second- rate humour. The success of mediocrity. Endless list.
By the time I pause to take a breath, the guy on the other line, who is not amused, says anger is not a joking matter.
I say, which one of these subjects I just listed comes off as a joke? They are all deadly serious and part of anger is that one is so helpless to do anything about it.
There is a gentler anger. At yourself, for getting fooled. For trusting in the wrong folks. In losing out when you should have won. It makes you strive, seek and not yield. Anger at not seeking the writing on the wall, knowing you are walking on thin ice and only figuring out the obvious when you have been frosted and drenched.
The point is I don't want to manage my anger. I want my anger to give me courage and strength to do the right thing. There is no point in being angry in isolation. It serves no purpose.
Unfortunately, anger has got a bad rap. Our imagery is of wife-beating, screaming, being unreasonable, throwing tantrums, being intolerant, flinging items of furniture, and being loud and boorish and snappy and grumpy and ill-tempered and intimidating.
Most of the above are merely weaknesses. Flaws in the human race, no more. Making a scene is not genuine anger; it is selfish and has a spoilt brat texture to it.
Anger is an emotion that makes a good servant and a bad master. It is the best friend of passion and if you can harness it and take it above the level of cliché. see where it takes you. Being angry because things are as they are rather than as they should be - now that is a good anger.
If you are seething at a high temp because you are so annoyed by the status quo, you might even let it fuel your drive to change things for the better and right the wrong.
I like people who get angry about sloppiness. Those who have low tolerance for waste. Who mock vanity and status symbols. Folks who walk a mile to pick up the fallen stone and put it back again because it bugs them. They have feelings, they want to make that difference.
Be angry when you see something patently wrong and do something about it. But do not lose your temper. There is a big difference in the two.
Most of us never see the difference because the 'shout' is our yardstick for measuring the 'bad mood'. Spouses, parents, bosses, an errant driver, road rage, aggression in looking for a fight, feeling slighted because you are wearing your thinnest skin, throwing things - these are our usual optics for 'anger' but in going through life with this attitude, we so dramatically fail to understand its true worth. Martin Luther King was angry because he was blocked by the colour of his skin. So he fought the good fight as did Nelson Mandela. Gandhi was angry about caste and colonialism and poverty and channelled that rage into a cry for freedom.
Emmeline Pankhurst was furious over the inability of women to vote and created the suffragette movement. Bobby Kennedy declared war on the narcotics trade because it was destroying a generation and gave his life in the bargain. Conservationist Dian Fossey fought for the rights of the gorillas trapped in the mist of greed and died at the hands of poachers. Erin Brokovich took on a massive corporation because they were poisoning the waters. All these people had one thing in common.
They were angry.
Go for the majesty in rage. It is there, in every one of us, see what makes you stay awake at night because it is so unfair and cruel, then make that difference.
At a certain point, let the world know that your opinion does count even if you look back in anger at your anger.
wknd@khaleejtimes.com

By Bikram Vohra

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