Anger is a great flame of presence. It is difficult to mistake or ignore any angry presence. Usually anger is like fire. It starts with a spark and then multiplies in a rapid exponential rhythm. Anger wants to break out; it stops us in our tracks. Much of the time we avoid conflict; we put up with things. We let things go. When the flame of anger rises, it confronts things. Anger shouts, “Stop!” It can be a great force for change. It is so encouraging to hear the voice of righteous anger raised. It names and confronts injustice. It brings clearly to light whatever is wrong and makes it clear to the perpetrators of injustice what they are doing. It is very interesting to notice how politically incorrect anger now is. Especially in these times, there are so many issues that should warrant great anger. The psychologist James Hillmann remarks in his devastatingly incisive way that psychotherapy has managed to convert anger into anxiety. If one becomes angry on television, one immediately loses the trust of the audience. Whatever common denominator of propriety television exercises, it seems that an angry presence, even when it is fully justified, still only manages to evoke sympathy for the target of the anger and the diminution of the presence of the angered one. Perhaps this only confirms even more trenchantly that television manages to depict only image and never real presence. Anger disrupts the fluent sequence of images and makes awareness awkward.
There are some people who seem to manage almost permanent anger. Every time you meet them, there is something new drawing their anger. Such people never relent. They are victims of a fire that started somewhere further back, but continues to flare up on every new ground they enter. There are also people who are constantly nice; they are always pleasing and accommodating. They never lose their composure; they give nothing away. Yet, if you really watch them, you will begin to detect a quiet fury behind the mask of niceness. It would be wonderful for them if even once they could unleash the fury with no concern for the situation in which they find themselves. It would limber up their personalities, and they would experience the immense relief of realizing that they did not need to desperately court approval in the first place.
Certain individuals use their anger as a brooding hostility to control those around them. There is a wonderful portrayal of this in John McGahern’s novel Amongst Women. Moran, the father in a household of women, can use his silent anger as a controlling force that infests the home with a permanent undercurrent of tension. His wife is the mediating presence who adverts to this ever-present hostility and ensures that Daddy is not disturbed. Related to this is the depressive presence. Sometimes the old definition of depression as inverted anger is accurate. The natural anger that should flame forth into the world is turned inwards on the self and used as a force of self-punishment. The outer presence is weary and passive, but deep underneath somewhere a searing flame crackles in the self.
When you really inhabit your anger, you enter into your power as a person. This should not be a permanent necessity. If you are in a situation where you are being controlled or bullied, the expression of your anger can liberate you. It is frightening that we often secretly believe that those who have power over us have right on their side, and our duty is to comply. No one can oppress you without some anger awakening in you, even covertly. If you listen to that anger, it will call you to recognize your right to an integrity of presence. And it will bring you to act and clearly show your strength. It is astounding how each day we give away so much of our power to systems and people who are totally unworthy of it. Ultimately anger points towards life. When your anger flames, it targets the falsity of expectation or tightness of belonging that is being inflicted on you. Anger breaks you free, suddenly.