Rage
Today’s post is based on a writing prompt I shared at the bottom of a previous post: Free Write, Rage. Keep reading, then leave a comment to discuss today’s dialogue prompt.
SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM TO SEE TODAY’S WRITING PROMPT
What I wrote below is based on the following writing prompt that was shared at the bottom of a previous Daily Drafts & Dialogues post: Set a timer for ten minutes. Start the timer and begin writing about rage without stopping until the timer goes off.
Rage is an emotion, so I want to create space for it somewhere, because all emotions need space somewhere, particularly the more volatile ones. But I’m never quite sure where to put rage. I know it should never be left unaccompanied by other more stable and balanced emotions and mindsets for too long, and that it should never be offered nourishment to grow or be neglected for too long either. In fact, I don’t know if there’s anything more dangerous in this world than someone’s neglected rage that was left to fester and become infectious— especially self-centered rage.
And, if I’m being honest, the rage I used to feel in my youth, which was instigated by both perceived and very real injustices, has simmered and faded now. Maybe others who have experienced violence and the cruel indifference of others in their youth know what I mean? That state in life you finally reach when you become too tired to cling to the rage that was instilled in you like it was a lifeline when, by now, you’ve learned far earlier than most, that it’s really only a ticking time bomb that will destroy you before it ever destroys those you originally wanted it to destroy first. Rage is akin to resentment, and both only poison their owners, no one else.
Unfettered and unmitigated rage is more self-destructive than not, which is disappointing for a lot of people to learn, if they’re granted the opportunities to learn such a lesson at all, because many privileged individuals won’t know and may never know what pure rage truly feels like, while many others will be lucky enough to not encounter what pure rage truly feels like until much later in life when they’re already too tired to hold onto it. Sometimes I’m glad to have encountered rage and its lessons earlier in life… but only sometimes, as people tend to expect and embrace hopeful, naive youths, not their opposites, like I was.
Lack of full-throttle rage at this stage in my life doesn’t mean I don’t care about or understand what’s at stake in this world right now, or that I’m not paying attention to who’s doing what in this world anymore, mind you. No, I haven’t tapped out or buried my head in the sand. Quite the contrary. I’m able to see more clearly what is what and who is who, and what I want to do about it, now that my rage goggles have been removed, or at least wiped clean of excess emotional silt.
I’m actually beginning to think my current post-pure-rage state in life is a simple byproduct of being exhausted from all the rage I’ve felt over the past several decades of my life, mixed with full awareness of how exhausting and unoriginal the repetitive cycles of rage remain in time and history— especially the religious, self-righteous, and misogynistic ones— they’re just turned via different waves of technology.
And maybe I’ve been aware for so long, too long, of the cruel indifferences and injustices of this world, and have cared for so long, too long about them, that somewhere along the way I learned to channel my rage about those indifferences and injustices into formidable, rational action that I can do wherever and whenever I stand. Because that’s the thing about rage most people don’t learn until it’s usually too late for them— if you don’t channel it and guide it where you want it to go, it will blind you and lead you instead. We haven’t been using the clichéd phrase ‘blind with rage’ for centuries for no reason, in other words.
Yet, at the same time, as I said before, I do want to give rage a space somewhere, because I realize how vital it is in informing me of what I care about most on an instinctual level, on a primal level, which is what makes it an important emotion to understand, ironically— its informational value. Tell me what sends someone off the deep end, what really sends them into a rage-filled tizzy, and I’ll be one step closer to telling you what and who they truly care about, and what and who they fear most.
