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How to be angry and stay human
Posted by Simon Parke, 18 January 2022, 9.30am
Here’s a strange thing.
If spirituality is important to you, you may discover you are becoming more political, not less.
Spirituality is the art of making connections; when some politicians wish to shatter them, aim only to demonise and divide.
It can make you angry.
And if beauty is important to you, you may discover you are becoming more political, not less.
Because beauty will always be sacrificed for power and for greed. Chemical rivers, shit in the sea, a warming planet.
It can make you angry.
So, perhaps surprisingly, instead of placing your head in the clouds, in some vague alternative reality, you find spirituality and beauty anchoring your feet on the ground and making warriors of you; women and men of resolve and action.
Shocked by the mixed motives of politicians, hiding blatant skullduggery behind earnest smarm, the anger can be quite intense.
And let it be intense! Anger can be profoundly creative!
But do make sure you are a worthy repository of the angry flame by holding up your own motives to the light.
This will keep you human.
Like the politicians, my motives are mixed, and they always will be. Nothing is pure, though sometimes it’s close.
I know a young entrepreneur who runs an eco business. He wants to save the world - and be a millionaire by the age of thirty. He’s happy to admit this.
Even in virtue, we have mixed-motives; the healthy and the happy are those who acknowledge them.
So, I will not try to be pure, it is a complete waste of time. I live from my fractures as much as I live from my light.
And instead of pretending purity, I will simply keep my wayward motives in front of me, within my kind gaze.
They do less damage there.
I greet them with a smile and keep my anger clean.
P.S. Possible daily mantra, ‘My motives are mixed but my heart seeks the good. Let it be.’
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