"People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing." - Will Roger
I heard a story recently about a romance that ended because the woman, a psychiatrist ironically enough, had a tendency to fly into a rage--an activity I've always believed to be singularly useless. I can only remember actually doing it a couple of times, both of which I thoroughly regret. More often I detour around rage, prompted by numerous signs along the roadside:
Potential Rage Ahead
Warning! Rage May Ensue
Trucks Shift Into Lower Gear, Rage in 1.5 Miles
In Case of Rage, Climb to Higher Ground
Isn't there always higher ground to climb to, or is there a place for flying into a rage? I once deliberately geared myself up to fly into a vicious rage with somebody I loved very much, not to release pent up anger but more in hopes I might finally persuade him to change and choose a less self-destructive path. Here is a list of activities on that same level of futility:
* Banging your head against a stone wall
* Pissing in the wind, tilting at windmills, clutching at straws
* Changing practically anything but your own reactions
* Sewing a cambric shirt without seams or needlework
* Finding an acre of land between the salt water and the sea sand
See also Scarborough Fair with a shout out to folk singers everywhere.
"But everybody needs to vent," you say.
Venting is different--properly done, it's letting off steam with somebody who cares enough about you to be sympathetic just long enough and no longer, lest you find yourself in a rut. Whereas indulging in full-on rage usually results in your saying hateful things you don't really mean in a nuclear escalation that often includes you subsequently hearing hateful things from the distant past and/or your misbegotten youth.
Instead, release the pressure a bit at a time with patience and direct communication, and nobody gets hurt. Clare Pinkola Estes tells the story of the faithful wife's long search for the tiger's eyelashes, a promised cure for her husband's debilitating post-traumatic stress. In the end, the patience that was required to obtain the tiger's eyelashes was itself the cure. What her husband needed most was her patience and love. Rage was just an unnecessary and stressful stop along the way.
All of that said, I am working on being more comfortable with anger, which is not the enemy, but a friend, a signpost pointing to situations demanding a closer look. It is okay to feel anger (and any other feeling), and nothing to fear. The key is what happens next.
