October 19: Electric Death, Anger, Mr. Rogers

A dreadful silence fell across the conference table as the commander of the Vl'hurgs, resplendent in his black jeweled battle shorts, gazed levelly at the G'Gugvuntt leader squatting opposite him in a cloud of green sweet-smelling steam, and, with a million sleek and horribly beweaponed star cruisers poised to unleash electric death at his single word of command, challenged the vile creature to take back what it had said about his mother.

Anger is never the answer in any situation.  The G'Gugvuntt and Vl'hurgs don't learn this lesson.  Their little misunderstanding kicks off a thousand-year intergalactic war.  In the end, nobody really understands why they've been fighting in the first place.  That's the way anger goes.

Last night, I wrote my blog post in anger, which is never a great idea.  When I woke up this morning, I was still angry, and I stormed around my house, silently stewing in my own juices of discontent.  I was setting myself up for an entire weekend of miserable fury, which would then spill over into next week.  Basically, I was the G'Gugvuntt leader, holding on to my feelings of insult and betrayal, ready to kick off a thousand-year grudge.

As I sat down to write this morning's post, I paged through my copy of Hitchhiker's and let my finger find my topic of the day randomly.  It landed on the above paragraph.  I read it.  Then, I reread it and laughed.  In his exaggeration, Douglas Adams is holding up a mirror to the ridiculousness of the human condition--we can turn a molehill of hurt into a mountain of acrimony.  (In Donald Trump's case, he's turned his molehill of egotistical slight against President Obama into a mountain of political stupidity that will cause the deaths of thousands of Kurds in Turkey.  That's the subject for another post.)  But you see where I coming from, don't you?  Acting out of anger never results in good things.  Ever.

So, today I have to regroup and figure out how to solve some problems.  I need to release my anger.  If I'm holding this anger in fisted hands, not letting go,  refusing to relax my fingers, then, when God comes along and offers me help, I'm not going to be able to reach out and take it from Him.  Because my hands are full of hurt and resentment. 

This is not an earth-shattering revelation.  In fact, it's something I was taught by Mr. Rogers when I was very young.  Yet, I need to keep relearning it.  I think this is about the 1,234,569th time for me.  Do I have a reason to feel angry?  I think so.  However, will that anger help anything?  No.  Absolutely not.  Mr. Rogers taught me that I have a right to feel all my emotions--happiness, anger, sadness, jealousy.  Emotions are real things, and ignoring them can be harmful. 

Therefore, today, I acknowledge my anger.  I allow myself to feel it.  Then, I let it go and move on.

As always, Saint Marty is a work in progress.