"Anger is an energy."

by Savage Chickens

The video of "Rise" [below], with its refrain "anger is an energy", opens with women beating the hell out of rugs.
How many powerless people in history have taken their anger out on domestic objects?

My Sicilian grandmother used to take revenge on her abusive husband, my grandfather, in homey little sideways.
He'd slam her and their kids with everything from a bowl of oatmeal to a two-by-four.
She'd serve him a sugar bowl "accidentally" filled with salt, and starch his underwear.

(Watch out for the power of the powerless.)

I sense that anger is next up on my To Do list.
I almost never feel angry. Instead, I feel lethargic. Weary. Burdened. Sad. Aloof.

Afraid.

I'm afraid of people being angry at me and of being angry myself. I don't want to hit people with whatever comes to hand, or get hit either.

Being nice because you don't want people to hit you back isn't compassion. It's cowardice.
That may be necessary for self-protection, sometimes, but it's like pouring sugar in the gas tank of creativity.

My fear of anger affects my writing. It slows me down, because I'm trying to be nice, trying to avoid punishment.
What kind of art do you create when you're trying to be nice all the time?
Something like Tupperware?
On the other hand, unchanneled anger just splatters the walls with oatmeal.

Anger by itself doesn't create anything.
I like the idea of anger as an energy, like gasoline. You sure don't want to muffle it in rags and stick it in the basement. Nor splash it all over the place.
You want to run it to an engine, so it takes you places.

I'm working on a gas-fueled engine, but it's still in R&D.

"Rise", Public Image Ltd. (PiL)), John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols), 1986

via Krista
"May the road rise with you."