I find myself getting angry with certain people a lot , and then feeling guilty about how I am behaving towards that person.
In our culture now , You are not supposed to get angry. "Its wrong " ....apparently ? At least that's how we are made to feel . In the post modern context - "its wrong" and "you must not do it" .
Clearly this latest talk is avoidance therapy; Politically correct quickfix
Sure its not nice, but neither is the washing up.
After all if your mother didn't get angry , you wouldn't realise she was seriuos about what you promised you would do after 10 nice requests . Poor mum's, I am sure they don't want to get angry!!
And why should dad's now get off scot free !!!! Sounding like little angels with the darlings ! If anger is just "sat on" , maybe the final explosion only gets bigger?
Helpfully - A few decades ago anger was , at least - talked about . It was part of life . Part of something to be managed - dealt with . "Don't let the Sun go down on your anger" ."Be Quick to listen , slow to speak and slow to get angry" .
So once its up , maybe its got more purpose '.
Some of us also know anger as the thing that gets things done( i didn' say it was the best way, but i did not say it was a wrong way either!)
Anger, is after all at its base, often a natural emotional response to a threat --a provocation. The punches in the fight in the film Prince Caspian were started by a prince because of soemthing that was said . Is the punch wrong ...or the words wrong?. Our legal system ( thank God its a bit behind the times sometimes) says its just as wrong to say it as to smack it .
The good book is also clear; the problem is not just something labelled anger, but what we do when we are angry - whether we sit on it shelve it or use it to fight well. Its not only our instincts we have to tame but our tongues and our tendency to keep score sheets . To say "no anger ever " is to suggest we should all live in small houses alone .
Another thing about anger is that it tends to breed anger in those who " didn't start it" - so how is it then 'wrong" of one to start and not wrong to feel it ? .
The wannbeflat world is too simple - too unnatural . If there are bears out there wanting to be bears, we need to talk to em !
For me too there are times when the anger is the reason I say what i really think and so it provides the possibility that the truth comes out" .
If there was no anger in our house , there would often be no reconciliation .No dealing with pain and hurt on both sides . No hugs No fun
So what do we do though , when we are really depressed . In a hole we can't get out of . When we've lost something we really loved ; When we are rightly grieving over a loss , or just when we feel trapped; really tired , or whatever. The effects of unjustifiable anger and moody manners can spread around the house as quick as cats poo ---making us all feel worse and more angry inside.
As long as its still OK to be angry - I'm still angry and i'm going to use that anger to get me to clean up , throw the cat out and TRY to enjoy the whole experience !
The best thing ( and there are not many best things) about grieving is that it gets a bit easier with each recurrence. Depression , fear and anger still come back , but the fights you have with them seem to bring something new and special into your life and your relationships.( My story of losing a career i loved)
Noone really misses out you know . Getting older means you will grieve .Everyone is affected every day . Grieve well and you will see good gifts still keep coming; grieve poorly and you be more of a grump than you even you you could bear .
What do you think ?
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
The old body shop
Tis a very good thing to spend some time with some like minds over a cuppa - I know you are all busy , but if the occassion should force itself on you - do it -it will be good for you. We old timers found some time to chew the fat at the old body shop - now one of the best restuarants in town;
The few minutes of deeper sharing were , it turned out ( we don't expect to talk more than " shop") a bit of a surpise - we are so often too busy to talk - our wives not only know better on this - they do better and get together.
Best thing was - we all felt uplifted ; ready to go back to war ! Not exactly dancing , not exactly praying ( but praising Ya) Now ....how good is that!
Finding people who you can relate to can be a challenge ( blogger should help !) . We blokes seem to need an excuse to talk . This busy day we were drawn by the promotion of one of us ( always happens in the bush - we notice when we lose things ) to at least say goodday and send him away . The jobs and the passions we share are held a bit rare in a world overwhelmed by " more than we can handle", so we specially value each player that pulls a bit of weight . Nobody wanted him to go, because we struggle to keep the quorum, let alone the chorus in a country town.
The best bit? The realization afterwards as we stood around outside waiting for our wives to stop talking !!!. We had all worked very hard with a range of goverenment appointees both labor and liberal and " neither was any better than any other".
Sure ,it was a hard lesson because we worked hard with both and wasted much time uneccesarily on the treading of water . There was however good comfort in being able to share it with each other, - as if we had never shared it with another before - maybe because like now, the tentacles of dipossession and confusion run so deep.
While party changes certainly brought some welcome "new" perspective, the damage they did in reaction was bigger than any real problem we ever had in the first place . War creates casualties and the ones we lost were often the best ones . Both parties are limited deeply by the dumb reactionary world views they both share and have shared in the last 40 years. They both fire and fall over in their love of change for changes sake .
The paradox of it all is both parties each saw themselves as innovative and authors when infact they often just named the others faults to show themselves approved, encouraging the bureaubrats to play the same game to our pain Pity they don't live in the class we do where the call "takes one to know one" keeps better order and avoids this silly distraction from our own hard fought progress as a team ( thats what PSP is all about - when its not eing pulled apart b such CFCS)
The deep drama for Australia was that our professional lives, like 100's of thousands of university grads who had committed themselves to it too , (in our cases teaching children in the state system protecting rural enetrprise and environment )were cut severely short by their stupidity ( incl understanding structural constraints of PS)
As practical and effective professionals we spent much of our energy trying to resist the erosion of common sense in the workplaces we loved and sought to preserve. The battles were uneccsary and avoidable and that was what hurt so much on reflection . We were caught up holding fingers in dykes when the dyke fixing fund was full .
Why were we doing less worthy things with fingers is another story for another day, but we generally knew why at the time .( better than what might have been if we didn't)
Keeping the public service alive in the post modern period is like working in a old folks home - there is some good and efficincy producing things there somewhere and you want young people to join the chorus, but there is much to prevent the wonderful challenges of both problem fixing and prevention from getting mixed up . The old have something to teach the young but will the new ones learn? Isaiah 1:2
The few minutes of deeper sharing were , it turned out ( we don't expect to talk more than " shop") a bit of a surpise - we are so often too busy to talk - our wives not only know better on this - they do better and get together.
Best thing was - we all felt uplifted ; ready to go back to war ! Not exactly dancing , not exactly praying ( but praising Ya) Now ....how good is that!
Finding people who you can relate to can be a challenge ( blogger should help !) . We blokes seem to need an excuse to talk . This busy day we were drawn by the promotion of one of us ( always happens in the bush - we notice when we lose things ) to at least say goodday and send him away . The jobs and the passions we share are held a bit rare in a world overwhelmed by " more than we can handle", so we specially value each player that pulls a bit of weight . Nobody wanted him to go, because we struggle to keep the quorum, let alone the chorus in a country town.
The best bit? The realization afterwards as we stood around outside waiting for our wives to stop talking !!!. We had all worked very hard with a range of goverenment appointees both labor and liberal and " neither was any better than any other".
Sure ,it was a hard lesson because we worked hard with both and wasted much time uneccesarily on the treading of water . There was however good comfort in being able to share it with each other, - as if we had never shared it with another before - maybe because like now, the tentacles of dipossession and confusion run so deep.
While party changes certainly brought some welcome "new" perspective, the damage they did in reaction was bigger than any real problem we ever had in the first place . War creates casualties and the ones we lost were often the best ones . Both parties are limited deeply by the dumb reactionary world views they both share and have shared in the last 40 years. They both fire and fall over in their love of change for changes sake .
The paradox of it all is both parties each saw themselves as innovative and authors when infact they often just named the others faults to show themselves approved, encouraging the bureaubrats to play the same game to our pain Pity they don't live in the class we do where the call "takes one to know one" keeps better order and avoids this silly distraction from our own hard fought progress as a team ( thats what PSP is all about - when its not eing pulled apart b such CFCS)
The deep drama for Australia was that our professional lives, like 100's of thousands of university grads who had committed themselves to it too , (in our cases teaching children in the state system protecting rural enetrprise and environment )were cut severely short by their stupidity ( incl understanding structural constraints of PS)
As practical and effective professionals we spent much of our energy trying to resist the erosion of common sense in the workplaces we loved and sought to preserve. The battles were uneccsary and avoidable and that was what hurt so much on reflection . We were caught up holding fingers in dykes when the dyke fixing fund was full .
Why were we doing less worthy things with fingers is another story for another day, but we generally knew why at the time .( better than what might have been if we didn't)
Keeping the public service alive in the post modern period is like working in a old folks home - there is some good and efficincy producing things there somewhere and you want young people to join the chorus, but there is much to prevent the wonderful challenges of both problem fixing and prevention from getting mixed up . The old have something to teach the young but will the new ones learn? Isaiah 1:2
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