Secular Mysteries: rage

I'm been thinking about the kind of topics a spiritual atheist would find enlightening. Time and time again my thoughts come back to the study of the arts and emotion. Truly can there be a better topic for an enlightened creature than to understand his or her self? Let us start with emotion.

Consider the eight primary emotions already considered on this blog: rage, vigilance, ecstacy, admiration, terror, amazement, grief and loathing. These are the most intense manifestations of these emotions, not the typical every day manifestations.

Just on that point, the fact that we consider it unusual to experience these 8 emotions on a daily basis is indeed interesting as it implies that frequently expressing intense emotions is somehow pathological. Actually it is... but not necessarily for the person expressing them but for the ones who have to endure such projections of emotions from these people which is very tiring.

I digress into topics I've already covered!

Anyway, consider the emotion of rage (anger, and coincidentally shares 4 of the same letters as 'rage'). Many people are immediately put off by an angry person. And anger person is percieved to be dangerous or unstable. While I don't doubt that there is some wisdom in such a conclusion it nonetheless runs the risk of missing the wonderfully positive effects of rage.

I was speaking to a man at the Parliament of the World's Religions who was bullied and abused as a child by teachers. He said he felt intensely angry as a child and this had prevented his spiritual growth and he felt guilty for harbouring such feelings of rage. Just as a suggestion I pointed out to him that maybe his rage had acted as a protective mechanism saving him from worse psychological damage as a child and how allowed him to be sufficiently intact to make a success of his career later in life. At this suggestion the man had an epifany and appeared to feel as though he could release much guilt he had been unnecessarily holding onto. I was quite chuffed with being an atheist and giving someone else a spiritual insight... :)

But apart from that it is hard to imagine Martin Luther King being such a great orator and inspiration if her were not full of rage. Admittedly, King had mastered his rage and turned it into a tremendous power for good. But that's the whole point. Anger is a powerful emotion, it is the emotion of power but it is morality neutral by itself. Anger is not the problem, the problem is the master whom anger serves.

If you meet an angry man in a bar perhaps it is worth considering whether he is angry at other people because he feels victimised and wants to take from others what he feels entitled to... or is his rage directed towards real injustices in the world and desire to use it to end the suffering of other people and not just his own?

For this reason I feel that everyone should take each emotion, for this example I have used rage, and really sit down and consider what makes them anger and why. Is it fair to be angry for such reasons? Are there more important things to be angry about? How much anger is too much? What limits should I put on the expression of my anger or what creative and good ways can I direct my anger towards? How can I use my anger to make me an inspiring and exciting presence in the world. One that doesn't do harm or upset other people?

Remember sometimes there are good circumstances to be angry: when someone steals something from you, when someone mistreats, when someone in anyway violates you. But as well as these good circumstances there are also good and poor ways to express ones anger that need to be moulded to suit the context.

Also, something more of personal issue... I often feel ashamed for being angry, I feel like I have to be perfect all of the time and so when I inevitably fail to live by these high expectations I turn my anger against myself. This self loathing is the equivalent of turning two powerful magnets of opposite polarity against each other. The effect is a powerful vice that can exert no force for useful work. Anger is spiritual power, it is the ability to reshape the world inside and outside of you... but it should never be used like a broadsword like this. It should best be directed at specific problems: like my self-loathing instead of myself! A focussed rage is a wise rage that can end slavery, liberate women and push personal development... and the better we can discern the best targets for our rage the better we can use it to make the world a better place.