Creative Rage

I am angry. I am allowed to be angry. I don’t know what they told you, the people who raised you. They might have said anger is dangerous, or primitive, or simply unacceptable. A lot of people say shit like that nowadays. A lot of people are terrified of anger, and conflict, and aggression.

“If only we could all just get along. Imagine a world without war. Imagine a world at peace.”

Imagine a world of cowardly, bloodless robots who smile, and nod, and bow, and never say what they think or feel, for fear someone somewhere might be offended. Imagine people who always check with their neighbours before they open their mouths.

“Let’s all get along,” is code for, “Why can’t everyone just agree with me and keep their mouths shut?”

When did having your own voice become a crime? When did having aspirations become a sin? When did personal victory become “selling out”? Even the rebels seem to embrace the lowest common denominator.

“Won’t someone think of the poor? Won’t someone think of the sick, the needy? Who will look after the children? Can’t we unite, as a people, for some common cause, and improve the world for all of us?”

We get tied to the feeblest, most broken, most humble, damaged people. They drag us down with their need, their hunger, their desperation. And we call that “being good”.

Won’t someone please think of themselves? Won’t someone please resist the urge to be ooze, melting into the people around them? The crowd always becomes one – a fluid of arms, and legs, and eyes, and teeth, and patches of hair. Weak-willed people, turning into soup, agreeing on every topic, afraid of anything extreme, certain that they are good, so naturally anyone who opposes them is bad.

I will be bad! Watch me. Let me stand up and say, fuck you! Fuck you tiny little things who bleed into each other like squashed cockroaches.

Who will fight me? Who will step forward and argue me point for point, instead of merely attempting to negate me with a label?

“Bourgeois! Middle-class! Consumer!”

Denial is no argument. It’s posturing, escapism. A real argument requires revealing your own weaknesses while stabbing at the weaknesses of others. An exchange of ideas, not just mere condemnation.

“I don’t have to listen to you because you don’t think like me.”

Fuck you, then! If you answer me without hearing me, it’s not really an answer, is it?

Uniqueness! Maybe that’s the concept I’m straining to grasp. People seem so keen to wear down their pointy edges. People are so accommodating, so smooth, so polished. I would rather listen to someone with a scratchy voice that hurts my ear than hear another velvet-throated crooner belt out a love song. Give me that voice of broken glass, that sound that punctures the ear drum. Passionately realistic. Sincerely damaged, flawed, and kicking at the pretty flowers all in a row.

What am I talking about? I’m not sure. It’s there, just beyond the reach of my fingers. It has to do with anger, and heroes, and selfishness, and power, and fighting for something. Not Ayn Rand selfishness. Protecting oneself from others. Having boundaries. Saying to other people…

“No, by god! No, I will not do as you ask! I will not merely agree with you for the sake of politeness! I will fight you! I will take you down! And we both will be better people for the struggle we have with each other! For who are our friends, really? Are they the ones who agree with everything we say, or are they the ones who spar with us passionately, but still call us friends? Who does you a service, and who merely caters to your foibles?”

Too many times, people ask me for something, and I yield. Will I help them move? Will I listen to them cry over a lost boyfriend? Will I accompany them to the prom? Will I feed their goldfish? Will I comb the hair on their back? Will I lend them thousands of dollars? Will I listen to them talk for thirteen hours about a dream they once had about a fish that could talk? Will I do it? Will I?

And I’ve said yes, over and over again. Yes, I will help you. Of course. Why not? You ask for my help, and I give it, and it makes me feel special, and good, and kind, and caring. Only, eventually, I feel like a sucker who doesn’t know how to say NO. I put my life on hold, stick my desires on the back burner, and do as you wish. Over and over again.

Only now I say “NO.”

No, I won’t help you. Not today. I’m tired and I’m pissed off, and I say NO.

So you look hurt, and confused, and you say:

“But, you’re always there for me! You always help me! You always say yes! What’s going on?”

Today’s the day I don’t eat your shit. Take it someplace else. I’m not a saint. I don’t have to always eat your shit. If I say no, maybe someone else will say yes. Or, you know what? Eat your own shit for a change. Get yourself a great big silver spoon and dig into that turd and eat it yourself.

“Oh, you’re so selfish. You won’t eat my shit. Oh, you selfish bastard! You only think of yourself. That’s who you think of, night and day. Yourself.”

Oh my god, I can’t tell you how wrong that is. Do you know how much time and energy and thought I have wasted, thinking about other people and their problems? Do you know how many of your goddamn turds I have swallowed? Not just you, but the turds of everyone in my life. I just smile, pick up that silver spoon, and eat that shit. It’s when I say no, when I turn on you, that you accuse me of selfishness.

“Protect yourself,” a friend warned me recently. “That guy who wants your help? He’s needy. He will latch on to you and suck the life out of you. Protect yourself. Protect your own little family, protect your home. Put up walls. Set rules of engagement. Limit your exposure. Don’t just let him waltz into your life and take over. If you let him, that’s exactly what he’ll do.”

People need to protect themselves, their homes, their thoughts, their feelings. And there’s nothing wrong with any of that.

Oh sure, some of you filthy anarchists will disagree. What about “unconditional love”? What about the “collective”? What about the poor? Can’t we all put our lives on hold and think about someone else for a change? Why have boundaries? Why have rules? Why protect yourself?

Because if you don't protect yourself, you have no self at all. We earn our souls. It's when we draw ourselves together in one place, pile our identity up in a single pile, that we have real strength and can accomplish real things.

You pretend not to understand, you people without boundaries, when I think you do. If you don’t protect yourself, you’ll find yourself saying, “yes,” when every fibre of your being screams, “no!” You’ll be taken over by people and ideologies you disagree with. If you don’t protect yourself, any asshole who comes along can waltz into your head and start rearranging the furniture.

Be hard. Unyielding. Only let in people who have earned your trust and your respect. Doesn’t that make sense?

I know, I know. It makes you feel guilty. Me too. That’s the irony of all of this. We’re taught to be open, accommodating, peaceful, kind, considerate, cooperative, and all that. That's the lesson of Sesame Street and our parents.

"Play nice with your sister and share your toys."

But there are times when you get to keep the toys in your head. You don't always have to share your feelings. Being wide open puts you at risk.

Wouldn't it have been great, if Gordon on Sesame Street shared another lesson?

“Oh, and by the way, there are some exceptions to that cooperation stuff I was telling you about. You might want to protect your turf, too. Don’t just let any asshole have his way. You get to decide who your friends and lovers are. Don’t let people push you around. Stand up for yourself.”

We need to know that shit, and yet, at the same time, it’s so undervalued. And some of us bristle and squirm when we’re reminded of it. Somehow, it feels like a betrayal. And yet it’s quite the opposite – it’s being true to yourself.

So… be angry. Stand your ground. And if someone tells you to eat their shit, say, “NO!”

Fight. Be creatively aggressive.

***

References:

“Creative Aggression: the art of assertive living”, by George Robert Bach and Herb Goldberg, 1974.