I know I am thinking about this daily. My heart is in such pain that anger is very close to the surface at all times. I have no useful model for how to channel it presently. When I read about “rising above it for my own good” I want to scream. I am reading Victor Frankl’s “Man’s Search For Meaning”. He talks about the condition of being a prisoner in a concentration camp from his first-person perspective. The deprivation was horrific and presented daily hardship aplenty. But what I keep coming back to again and again is his acknowledgement that the cruelty of the guards was exponentially more damaging to the psyche because of its injustice. The acts of injustice folded into the cruel behavior dealt the deepest, most stinging pain. I feel that now. The injustice of the gop’s actions. All the bold-faced lies, All the unaccountability, The death of “Rule of Law”. That is the well from which my anger seems bottomless. I would love to know a solution. But for now I hold on by my fingernails, feel it, and hope for a light to pierce my darkness to shine a way out of this.
Yup! That’s exactly the game-plan. This war is not traditional blood-in-the-streets stuff. The battleground is our minds. To despair is “mission-accomplished” for maga. Our despair is their fentanyl. They crave it. Cruelty IS the objective. It’s hard to resist despair and depression by their tactics. A compassionate person’s mind abhors injustice. When I despair I remember Fred Roger’s mother’s advice to him after learning as a young boy that Pearl Harbor was bombed, she urged him to “Look for the Helpers”. They are always around. And when you get another wind, you can maybe become one of them yourself.
I was angry now I am very sad. But the sadness will lead me to doing good for my family and community. These times will not take away my humanity. Then it wins
Anger at injustice is never wrong. All of your emotions are important. Just as much as any other physical or mental sense or tool you have been given. There are well more than five senses. Use them all. That you feel anger tells you this is not right. And it should be the thing that spurs you to action to help make things better, rather than allowing the anger to make you a victim, complaining about everything and blaming others. Get busy making the world a better place and whatever way you are able. Feel the hope in even the smallest of successes. They grow.
This and many other of your writings are how I can tell your heart is true. I recognize it because my heart is also. I have never felt so much anger. I know I don't want to deliver, it feels ugly and nauseating. But like you, it has been helpful by calling me to even further efforts and actions, and pre-planning as much as possible for how I can be helpful in the most need if the time comes.
Exactly! The worse things become, the angrier I become...I don't like me like that! So when I go out into the world, I replace my private anger with kindness to all that I come in contact with: It is my antidote of survival. Peace!
I don't express anger well. My friends get defensive: are you really mad me or "the world situation"?
When Trump heard Obama "insult" him at that dinner, I knew trouble had begun. He,
like many, didn't want a Black in White House. Revenge. It took him 8 eight years, but Jan. 20, 2025, he'll be sworn in. There were several opportunities to nab him, but , in the end, he won.
Bannon, Miller, and Musk: what a combo!
This is not what I voted for.
Ukraine is trying to stay in the battle, but Trump will stop the weapon flow.
Bibi is into genocide in Gaza 24/7. We must stop funding genocide. His madness has spread to Lebanon.
I don't agree with Anne Frank. I don't think people are basically good. You have to decide to cultivate goodness and stick with it.
Jesus has told us, love yourself and your neighbor as yourself. Jesus never lets up,
because He knows it's hard. I am going to keep trying, because I won't join the haters.
Anger kicks up dust all over the common good until it is unseen - buried. Anger is highly toxic energy that zaps the will to heal. Anger is the pile-driver that beats us into the ground. Kindness, compassion and constructive listening that can create positive energy within our self and others - the electric pulse for change and a brighter day/future. Try this. Believe me it will not hurt but can surprise you.
Using anger as a barometer, I think we look at what results from our anger: Are we fighting to give people rights or take them away? Are we fighting for greater diversity or less? Are we trying to bring more people to the table or fewer? What is the intent of our outrage? I would argue that we on the Left are angry at people being dehumanized and injured. We are trying to prevent people from losing body autonomy, legal protections for their marriages, the opportunity to emigrate, healthcare, affordable housing, etc.
America asked God for Barabbas, so God gave America Barabbas.
To me, it feels like God Has Given Us Up.
The DNC did not spend so much as one dime in my state — with the result that Christian Nationalists have taken over all state offices in my state. Afterwards, the DNC turned around and asked for donations. I told them to go pound sand.
I live in a liberal city which is a blue island in a deep red sea. After this election, the Democratic Party needs to demonstrate to me that they’re actually serious about the candidates they pick to run. Our Democratic candidate for governor was a former Republican. I’ll vote in city and county elections: I’m indifferent towards candidates for state offices.
I have not prayed since the election; I have not taken Communion. God has given us up: fine, then God does not deserve my respect or worship.
(I did come down with a bad case of pneumonia the day after the election, and my doctor said it would take about two months to recover. Yeah, I took the antibiotics; but honestly, I don’t care if I recover or not.)
I’m not angry: I Simply No Longer Care. I am completely indifferent to God, to the United States, to democracy, and to humanity.
Anger can be motivating… there is much to be angry about… I don’t want to be there forever… but I choose to be there awhile…. The church sometimes needs to be angry to be prophetic!!!
Anyone who says I/we shouldn't be this angry isn’t paying attention, doesn’t give a damn, or has already given up. Whichever one, they just don’t get it. It’s now or never
Whats happening now in the U.S., and the rest of world, will someday be the lessons taught to future generations. I hope to hell the teachers are allowed to, and have the means to grab the attention of those students adequately.
Sadly, we learn best from having experienced the pain.
I’m sorry John, but I cannot live with anger in my life. I need to live as I always have, moving forward with my daily chores and keeping contact with my family with hope for the future. There is another world out there begging for change. It’s the poverty among us and the helpless who need us. We need to have a positive outlook or we will disintegrate into despair. Anger can destroy that positivity. It’s not for me.
I know I am thinking about this daily. My heart is in such pain that anger is very close to the surface at all times. I have no useful model for how to channel it presently. When I read about “rising above it for my own good” I want to scream. I am reading Victor Frankl’s “Man’s Search For Meaning”. He talks about the condition of being a prisoner in a concentration camp from his first-person perspective. The deprivation was horrific and presented daily hardship aplenty. But what I keep coming back to again and again is his acknowledgement that the cruelty of the guards was exponentially more damaging to the psyche because of its injustice. The acts of injustice folded into the cruel behavior dealt the deepest, most stinging pain. I feel that now. The injustice of the gop’s actions. All the bold-faced lies, All the unaccountability, The death of “Rule of Law”. That is the well from which my anger seems bottomless. I would love to know a solution. But for now I hold on by my fingernails, feel it, and hope for a light to pierce my darkness to shine a way out of this.
For me, anger is morphing into depression and despair. I'm generally a pretty optimistic person. I hate feeling this way.
Yup! That’s exactly the game-plan. This war is not traditional blood-in-the-streets stuff. The battleground is our minds. To despair is “mission-accomplished” for maga. Our despair is their fentanyl. They crave it. Cruelty IS the objective. It’s hard to resist despair and depression by their tactics. A compassionate person’s mind abhors injustice. When I despair I remember Fred Roger’s mother’s advice to him after learning as a young boy that Pearl Harbor was bombed, she urged him to “Look for the Helpers”. They are always around. And when you get another wind, you can maybe become one of them yourself.
I was angry now I am very sad. But the sadness will lead me to doing good for my family and community. These times will not take away my humanity. Then it wins
Anger at injustice is never wrong. All of your emotions are important. Just as much as any other physical or mental sense or tool you have been given. There are well more than five senses. Use them all. That you feel anger tells you this is not right. And it should be the thing that spurs you to action to help make things better, rather than allowing the anger to make you a victim, complaining about everything and blaming others. Get busy making the world a better place and whatever way you are able. Feel the hope in even the smallest of successes. They grow.
This and many other of your writings are how I can tell your heart is true. I recognize it because my heart is also. I have never felt so much anger. I know I don't want to deliver, it feels ugly and nauseating. But like you, it has been helpful by calling me to even further efforts and actions, and pre-planning as much as possible for how I can be helpful in the most need if the time comes.
Exactly! The worse things become, the angrier I become...I don't like me like that! So when I go out into the world, I replace my private anger with kindness to all that I come in contact with: It is my antidote of survival. Peace!
I don't express anger well. My friends get defensive: are you really mad me or "the world situation"?
When Trump heard Obama "insult" him at that dinner, I knew trouble had begun. He,
like many, didn't want a Black in White House. Revenge. It took him 8 eight years, but Jan. 20, 2025, he'll be sworn in. There were several opportunities to nab him, but , in the end, he won.
Bannon, Miller, and Musk: what a combo!
This is not what I voted for.
Ukraine is trying to stay in the battle, but Trump will stop the weapon flow.
Bibi is into genocide in Gaza 24/7. We must stop funding genocide. His madness has spread to Lebanon.
I don't agree with Anne Frank. I don't think people are basically good. You have to decide to cultivate goodness and stick with it.
Jesus has told us, love yourself and your neighbor as yourself. Jesus never lets up,
because He knows it's hard. I am going to keep trying, because I won't join the haters.
Anger kicks up dust all over the common good until it is unseen - buried. Anger is highly toxic energy that zaps the will to heal. Anger is the pile-driver that beats us into the ground. Kindness, compassion and constructive listening that can create positive energy within our self and others - the electric pulse for change and a brighter day/future. Try this. Believe me it will not hurt but can surprise you.
How can we deal with the “good vs evil” feelings? It’s all an allusion if we believe good will win. It’s so depressing.
Using anger as a barometer, I think we look at what results from our anger: Are we fighting to give people rights or take them away? Are we fighting for greater diversity or less? Are we trying to bring more people to the table or fewer? What is the intent of our outrage? I would argue that we on the Left are angry at people being dehumanized and injured. We are trying to prevent people from losing body autonomy, legal protections for their marriages, the opportunity to emigrate, healthcare, affordable housing, etc.
America asked God for Barabbas, so God gave America Barabbas.
To me, it feels like God Has Given Us Up.
The DNC did not spend so much as one dime in my state — with the result that Christian Nationalists have taken over all state offices in my state. Afterwards, the DNC turned around and asked for donations. I told them to go pound sand.
I live in a liberal city which is a blue island in a deep red sea. After this election, the Democratic Party needs to demonstrate to me that they’re actually serious about the candidates they pick to run. Our Democratic candidate for governor was a former Republican. I’ll vote in city and county elections: I’m indifferent towards candidates for state offices.
I have not prayed since the election; I have not taken Communion. God has given us up: fine, then God does not deserve my respect or worship.
(I did come down with a bad case of pneumonia the day after the election, and my doctor said it would take about two months to recover. Yeah, I took the antibiotics; but honestly, I don’t care if I recover or not.)
I’m not angry: I Simply No Longer Care. I am completely indifferent to God, to the United States, to democracy, and to humanity.
Anger can be motivating… there is much to be angry about… I don’t want to be there forever… but I choose to be there awhile…. The church sometimes needs to be angry to be prophetic!!!
Anyone who says I/we shouldn't be this angry isn’t paying attention, doesn’t give a damn, or has already given up. Whichever one, they just don’t get it. It’s now or never
I'd like to honor my anger by not supporting those companies that are supporting this regime. Can you send a list of those you know about?
I listen to this post quite often. It's kind of become a weekly prayer.
Whats happening now in the U.S., and the rest of world, will someday be the lessons taught to future generations. I hope to hell the teachers are allowed to, and have the means to grab the attention of those students adequately.
Sadly, we learn best from having experienced the pain.
It takes far more energy to hate, so don’t waste it on meaningless stuff that you can’t affect. As the Beatles sang, Love is All There Is”
I’m sorry John, but I cannot live with anger in my life. I need to live as I always have, moving forward with my daily chores and keeping contact with my family with hope for the future. There is another world out there begging for change. It’s the poverty among us and the helpless who need us. We need to have a positive outlook or we will disintegrate into despair. Anger can destroy that positivity. It’s not for me.