To: K-list
Recieved: 1999/09/08 11:08
Subject: Re: [K-list] Anger from Love
From: Blackswan
On 1999/09/08 11:08, Blackswan posted thus to the K-list:
Regarding:
>. . . How to distinguish between righteous anger and petty anger,
>>when it comes to ourselves?
>>Righteous anger, that sometimes goes beyond this lifetime..
>>Isn't the ultimate motivation of these people compassion in the end?
>All anger can be looked at as a form of love: people get angry when the
>thing they love/want is blocked/hindered. Anger brings up energy to deal
>with the blockage - not always in the most constructive way, but
>learning to channel that energy is part of life's process.
Yes, yes! Look beyond the "petty" aspect of anger that equals complaint to the
"righteous" aspect of anger which mobilized to expresses passionate commitment.
And you're right on target; the underlying commitment is love.
We've mentioned realize examples from mosquitos to Martin Luther. The Movie
"Goodwill Hunting" has lots of examples of passionate and confronting
communication, the background of which is protection from pain and loss on one
hand and the expression of a fiercely passionate love on the other hand. There
are also 2 great examples of anger being a reaction to a violation of love from
popular movies: King Kong and Braveheart.
King Kong shows a huge ape-beast who "loves" the heroine and will break through
and restraint in order to be close to the object of his love. King Kong gets
angry and often forcefully violent when he perceives a threat to the one he
loves and rushes in to (attempt to) comfort, nurture, protect, etc.. her.
Braveheart documents a man commitedly angry at the senseless loss of his wife's
life by a system that values tyranny over full life.
Resisting their unwillingness to be held accountable for their violations of
love and freedom of the people they are supposed to be "protecting", he is
beyond enraged. His anger lashes out in calculated and fierce systematic action
designed to destroy those who perpetuate a way of life that seems to work for
the few but hurts the many.
Far from being limited by conventional niceness, William Wallace's love is a
weapon to disrupt evil. But what is the long-term good intention? That goodness
results. Intimacy. Freedom. Harmony. Simple full life. William Wallace becomes
a savior / martyr/lover/fighter/redeemer figure whose fiercely passionate love
drives him to love freedom more than his own life. In stead of protecting
himself as an ego, he gives himself in away in whole-hearted service to a cause
large enough to be worth his total devotion. Only the strong can do that. Only
the free are free to choose that. Only leadership based on humble service has
the power to make that kind of difference. The result is a difference is made
beyond him as an individual or ego or personality, (a "self" living for
himself) rather who he is known for is him as his commitment and the good that
was cultivated.
Dare we let that kind of disruptive and blatantly passionate kind of love in?
Dare we adopt a vision of leadership as that much unswerving devotion to
unreasonable service? What I hear behind these films is something like:
"Instead of living primarily for me, I am secure/whole/complete and so I am
alive and free now to live FOR you -- on your behalf -- to do whatever enlivens
you the most. If that means abandoning niceness and getting in your face to
confront you when you are out of line with what you're really here to be about,
then I am willing to do that as an expression of love. I'm not here to hurt or
dominate you; just to let you surrender to the domination of your own
commitments so you can be most fully alive to be you."
Violent action as a result of anger may or may not be appropriate. But realize
acknowledge the anger that comes from a (real or perceived) violation of love.
When you can trace what happens in any given circumstance and how both of you
felt and responded all the way to the point where you clearly realize that the
anger is a secondary response to a perceived violation of love, THEN you have
clarity / freedom / power in any situation. Not "power" to make things go your
way, but power to BE free and completely alive in every moment and any
circumstance.
Bottom line: anger can be an ally when love is willing to be an unreasonable
weapon to break through any stops to cultivate goodness. When love is fully
freed, it is free to be angry too, knowing that the underlying purity of
intention will guide even its anger to only tear down that which tears down all
to promote a greater fullness to life.
If you hear this as a justification for being a jerk; then you've missed it
completely. But if a King Kong facet or a William Wallace aspect is actually
what is most loving then to withhold that is actually to pull the punch on the
"transformative" difference love is designed to make
regarding:
>I mean,
>it's easy to be angry and in your anger to be (self)destructive but in the
>end I believe it has to be transformed to be useful, as people like Martin
>Luther King whom you mentioned, prove.
Excatly. Anger as protecting your own ego, while attempting to be
self-protective, is also somewhat self-destructive. It does not result in a
greater apprecion and aliveness. Anger does indeed have to be transformved from
a heart of love instead of selfish ambition to prove useful.
--blackswan
Martin Thompson wrote:
> 15:57:42 Wed, 1 Sep 1999
> alingimp at alingimp <alingimpATnospamhome.com> writes:
> >. . . How to distinguish between righteous anger and petty anger,
> >when it comes to ourselves?
>
> But sometimes, it is OK to be angry, even over petty things: people need
> to know when to lay off and you need to defend your space sometimes.
>
> >Angeliqe wrote:
> >Look at great leaders, and you will find most often,
> >>that their original motivation to get them up off their butts, was anger.
> >>> Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, .. labor unions, the human rights
> >>movement, the Vietnam protesters.. Righteous anger, that sometimes goes
> >>beyond this lifetime..
> >Isn't the ultimate motivation of these people compassion in the end?
>
> All anger can be looked at as a form of love: people get angry when the
> thing they love/want is blocked/hindered. Anger brings up energy to deal
> with the blockage - not always in the most constructive way, but
> learning to channel that energy is part of life's process.
>
> An insect attacks you, you get angry as you love yourself and don't want
> to be harmed. Someone insults your friend... and so on.
>
> So use it constructively then! When you want to work on some project,
> think angrily about what that project will help you solve. (E.g., Rats!
> I'm fed up with not having enough money! I'm going to work smarter from
> now on...)
> --
> Martin Thompson martinATnospamtucana.demon.co.uk
>
> "Everything I do and say with anyone makes a difference." Gita Bellin
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