Still Angry After All These Years

I am an angry man. A few years ago, an internet poet who put more time into his trolling than he did his poetry accused me of being (paraphrased) 'one of those poets that thinks everyone should walk around behaving like perfect little Buddhas'. I hated this accusation, but it was right.

Anger has always felt unseemly to me. To not be in control of my emotions, to need things from other people...it seemed like the height of vulgarity. To speak plainly--or to hear someone else speak plainly--still startles me. I don't know where I got this country gentleman's disposition from, but it's retarded.

It's also phony. As is often the case with those who take on airs and 'protest too much', I am a seething cauldron of anger beneath the surface. Everything makes me angry. Poverty, The Pansy Left, The Proud-Idiot Right, Christianity, authority, bad table manners, cowards, cruelty, myself...this is a severely truncated list, but all of these things get under my skin.

I've tried to embrace my anger, and let it just run through me. I can enjoy this sometimes, but it usually burns me out. I've tried to blot it out and repress it, but it comes back with a vengeance. Today I tried to take the Buddha's advice and view my thoughts as clouds traveling across the sky of my consciousness--observing them, acknowledging them, and letting them pass--and it seemed alright. It felt good in a clean kind of way, but how long can a person stay that aware?

Life is alarming and sharp.We are soft, and want to sleep. We want to seize the day, but only from the safety of a dream state, where we control all the knobs.

That sounds false. Why do I do that? I want to put a cap on every thought. I want to summarize and lecture my fellow primates. I want to impart wisdom. When I'm lying or rationalizing, I usually slip into third person. I wonder why that is?

But I'm angry, and I've got to accept it. I'm imperfect, and I've got to accept that too. Other people are imperfect...are they imperfect, or are they just not like me? I've got to accept all of it, I suppose.

Life feels like a great mountain that I'm always climbing. Pressure builds inside of me, and I need an outlet. Writing these little notes to you is my outlet, and I thank you for reading them. I don't know exactly how the mechanism works, but it does. Do what works! Whatever works. Whatever gets you through the night.