Angry Shmo
Thoughts on anger and what this "Angry Shmo" Substack is about
There I was, the commander of a fighter squadron. One of the people I worked with made a sign for the outside of my office door. It was several laminated pages with different emojis. They would pick the image that advertised my mood. The pictures ranged from happy to nuclear meltdown. That way, people could make an informed decision about whether to go in to see me. More often than not, the sign warned that I was Angry Shmo.
When I retired from the military in 2013, I had six months off before I returned to work at the airlines. I spent some time in self-reflection. One of the lessons I learned from my career in uniform was that I was angry too often. The leaders that I respected the most in the military invariably kept their composure no matter what was going on. I was not that way. Martha Nussbaum is a philosopher who wrote a book called Anger and Forgiveness. In an interview with CBC, Nussbaum said that, in Greek and Roman societies, "If someone got angry a lot, they thought that would be a childish person.” I made it a goal to keep my cool as I went back to work in the civilian world.
Here’s my dirty little secret: I like being angry. It makes me feel good. But only temporarily. It’s not an emotion that lasts. I might tap rage for the finishing sprint of a marathon. But anger will not get me through four months of training and the previous 26 miles just before that finish line. So anger hurts those around me and has no useful staying power.
In that CBC interview, Nussbaum helpfully breaks anger into two pieces.
1. The feeling of wrongdoing: You think a wrong has been directed at you or something you value greatly, and you believe someone willingly performed that wrong.
This kind of anger, Nussbaum says, is appropriate. We need accountability when things go wrong and we need to do all we can to prevent it from happening again — it's a very important part of our social structure, she says.
Where anger can go astray is in the second half, which usually follows the first.
2. The wish for payback: This is the feeling that the wrongdoer should suffer greatly for their actions.
Wanting revenge for your suffering is a no-win situation, Nussbaum says. Many people believe that inflicting proportional pain on the wrong-doer will somehow balance out the offense; Nussbaum says that is a fantasy.
There’s a lot of BS in the world. A lot more is coming right around the bend. Nussbaum confirms anger is appropriate. But nobody I care about deserves to be hurt by it. And revenge doesn’t work. It certainly won’t work if you believe that we’re all in this American experiment together. I’d like to see people suffer the consequences of their votes, but the problem is, we’re all going to be affected.
So the real question is what to do with the anger? What am I supposed to do with this incredibly deep-seated anger I feel after this election?
It’s hard to get mad at the people who are going to lead the attacks on our form of government. They told us who they were. They are like glands. They have no higher functions. You can’t get mad at a gland. They don’t care about or understand the Constitution. They don’t care about governance. They’re simple. They want money. They want power. They want the power to keep themselves out of prison and to subjugate the “other.” Glands are simple and easy to predict. Plus I don’t feel like re-arguing what should’ve been self-evident. My fellow Americans want it, apparently.
The problem is that I’m mad at my fellow Americans. I went to war. I saw and did awful things. I was able to do that because I trusted my leaders. I believed in our Constitution and our form of government. And when I came back from service, I trusted my fellow man to, I don’t know, not elect convicted felons that have been found liable for sexual abuse. I feel a deep sense of betrayal. For a look at that white hot rage, you can see my Veterans Day Facebook rant. I don’t trust my fellow citizens anymore. I feel a deep sense of loss. It may be that my anger is from grief at that loss.
In her book, Nussbaum says this about your vulnerability when you trust someone: Trust, by contrast, involves opening oneself to the possibility of betrayal, hence to a very deep form of harm.
I feel betrayed. I feel harmed. I told you I like to feel that rush of anger. I am justified to feel it. I can foresee I’m going to feel it on the regular very soon with each new atrocity that I read about. Each new attack by glands on the Five Freedoms in the First Amendment of the Constitution. Each time the glands attempt to steal our federal public lands and transfer them to private ownership. Each time the glands try to line their own pockets with money that was intended for veterans. Each time the glands try to subjugate the “other” in our society, especially women, who are roughly half of the world and the mothers of every single one of us. So what to do with the anger?
I am going to try to turn rage into productive action. Nussbaum is very helpful to me with these two passages from her book.
[Anger] diverts one’s thoughts from the real problem to something in the past that cannot be changed. It makes one think that progress will have been made if the betrayer suffers, when, in reality, this does nothing to solve the real problem. It eats up the personality and makes the person quite unpleasant to be with. It impedes useful introspection. It becomes its own project, displacing or forestalling other useful projects. … Far from being required in order to shore up one’s own self-respect, anger actually impedes the assertion of self-respect in worthwhile actions and a meaningful life.
All too often, anger becomes an alluring substitute for grieving, promising agency and control when one’s real situation does not offer control… The way to deal with grief is just what one might expect: mourning and, eventually, constructive forward-looking action to repair and pursue one’s life. Anger is often well-grounded, but it is too easy for it to hijack the necessary mourning process. So a Transition from anger to mourning — and, eventually, to thoughts of the future — is to be strongly preferred to anger nourished and cultivated.
So, I’m going to focus on thoughts of the future here at Angry Shmo. The act of scribbling itself will help me disperse undifferentiated range into (I hope) coherent thought. I’m going to focus on land and veterans issues, where I can speak fairly intelligently. When I can, I’ll fight against the attacks on the “other,” especially on women. I mean, maybe you know some women.
I’m not interested in changing minds anymore. I tried that. It was useless. I’m interested in building and strengthening relationships with like-minded people. I’m going to share what I’m thinking and doing. Maybe people will find inspiration from what I think and do for their own actions.
Meanwhile, I’m not going to let a bunch of stupid glands steal my joy. My joy from my family, my friends, and the outdoors. It’s going to be tough, but that’s part of what Angry Shmo will be about: Figuring out how to be joyful while turning rage into action.
Permit me another marathon running analogy. When I’m in a race and running my gameplan pace, sometimes a nearby runner I know will be near me. Sometimes they’ll go out faster than me at the start. They’ll run a pace that I know I can’t match and survive. I don’t worry about the crazy-fast pace they are running. I commit myself to running my own race. I don’t try to catch them. I say this to myself, “They might come back to me.” I run my own race. I’m going to run my own race in society. Maybe, as the glands start tearing down our country’s institutions, my fellow citizens will come back to me. Meanwhile all I can do is run my own race.
You can learn more about the Angry Shmo Substack and me at the About section of this page.
It is okay to write your anger merely because you cannot not write your anger.