We might be tempted to condemn hatred as a bad thing. At least I always was. I thought I should just try to love everybody and be nice. But I simply could not suppress something inside of me that wanted to correct injustice by using a sledgehammer.
So I thought, what if the key is not to avoid anger or resentment, but rather to shape it and channel it in the right way? What if I were to lean all the way into the fire of my anger? What new self might emerge?
Unfortunately, reality is not so clean and simple. In my younger days, I was very quick to anger, with irreversible and destructive results. More often than not, I would enjoy only a brief spell of false euphoria, which usually stemmed from the momentary release of negative energy as I spewed onto someone else. as soon as the emptying of my negative energy receptacle was complete, the buzz wore off, and I came crashing down. Then I’d be met with the shocked and hurt looks on the faces of people around me.
As a 6‘5“ tall male, I also have to be mindful of the fact that people, especially women, can easily feel threatened by me. I have been told that I have a scary voice when I yell. Somehow, it never worked when I actually tried to be scary.
When we lean fully into our anger and hatred, unpredictable things can happen. Anger is like fire. We can cook dinner or burn down a city. Directed well, rage can put injustices right. We can win victories, build businesses, and vanquish tyrants. There’s nothing so powerful as the charge of a berzerker. Directed poorly, we can create disaster.
The question, then, is how to direct rage so as to maximize the probability of a productive result. How do we aim the cannon? And how do we know when we have made the right choice? I think to some times when I made poor choices and allowed my rage to spill out at the wrong times. There were the times when I aimed at the wrong (undeserving) person. There were times when I fired the cannon out into the ocean and struck nothing. There were the times when I fired the cannon impotently at impregnable targets. There were times when I did all of the above.
We need to learn to be as caged hounds, waiting for the fight to begin. We need a sort of maintenance routine to keep our anger burning strong, stoking the fire to ever more intensity. When the moment comes, when we see the signal from our higher selves, we need to be ready to strike with the swiftness of a serpent, sinking our teeth as commanded and loosing all of the venom in us. Until the moment comes, we need to learn to live with the heat pressing on us, trying to force us to explode. We are both servant and master. We serve the higher self; we command the anger. In truth, we pass on the command. We do not command at our own will but at the behest of the one who commands us.
An army must remain ready for war at all times. At any moment, any hour in the middle of the night, a war can begin. The first shot fired may come in many forms. The hand of the aggressor may be disguised. If we have not kept up with our drills, if we are not well practiced in maneuvers, we will not be ready. If we have not learned to keep our anger ready to ignite, we will fight a lukewarm battle against a fierce enemy who seeks to tear us apart. The emergence of hatred is inevitable. We will either burst forth at a time of divine calling, or we will burst forth at a time of impulse. We obey the spirit or we obey the flesh. We cannot serve two masters.
In Orwell’s 1984, the people dedicated time daily to “two minutes of hate.” They looked at the face of Oceania’s enemy. Theirs was easy; the enemy was known. We face the deepest trouble when we know not who is friend and who is foe. But truly, we can look into the mirror and see both.
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