Ode to anger

I love anger.

Not in the moment. Hell no. Who enjoys an unexpected houseguest that we know from well-worn experience might break things, piss people off, or stay for days if not weeks on end?

What I love are the building blocks anger gives my creativity. Anger feels like a pissed-off messenger Hermes sent from my unpredictable Zeus brain. And often a welcome arrival. Truly. Negative emotions are signals. That’s it. Absolutely, sometimes they’re destructive, but they’re just as often constructive (as in this very lengthy article about the history of anger.) Stove hot = pain. Rock climbing wall new and scary = fear. Taken advantage of, having your voice silenced, witnessing injustice in the world = anger. (As my brilliant friend, teacher and journalist Amanda Castleman reminds me: frustration and annoyance are a whole different kettle of Siamese fighting fish.)

Zeus might go to a +15 angry, but it did help him create lots of stuff.

Hell, all emotions are signals. Feelings are what we create to translate our brain and body’s signals into a context we think we understand.

Don’t get me wrong; negative emotions are horrible in the moment. While you’re in pain, or fearful, or sad, or angry, it can be pure misery. (Or even worse — addictive — but that’s another blog post.)

Here’s how I envision anger: you’re at the bottom of a well. Water is pouring in, and it’s starting to rise. Maybe even up to your chest or neck. Hopelessness and despair are the mud and rocks that hold you down. Anger is the kick fins that buoy you up towards the top. You’re in a well, so if you kick too hard, those fins can do some serious damage. But they’ll fight against the sludge monsters pulling you down.

Anger and creativity

Anger can temporarily make many of us more creative, studies have unsurprisingly shown. Here’s my take: this isn’t true for everyone, but for a great many of us, anger is further north of the more passive negative emotions for lots of us — sadness, hopelessness, despair, depression. If we’re angry, our brains are active. They’re literally acting out.

They’re actually looking for a solution, although it doesn’t feel like that in the moment. Anger is also really, really juvenile, so its solutions are primordial and toddler-like.

Speaking of toddlers, I like to think of tantrums as anger personified, dialed up to a 9. “Use your words” parents will tell a child consumed with anger. (The saying ‘well up with anger’ exists for a reason, as does most physically embodied cliches.)

Anger is often what impassions people to go from passive to active. And what does creativity need? Passion! Action! Engagement!

Creativity and negative emotions

I want to read the study that tracks 10,000 people’s creativity journeys. Did they start that band at age 15 only because they deeply resonated with music, or because they also kinda wanted to get laid? Did they start writing fan-fiction because they felt at one with the universe or because a twinge of competitiveness or envy sent a signal to itself: ‘C’mon man; I bet you could do better’?

Welcome to being human. Anger is just one more messy, complicated and gorgeous layer of what drives us to create.

Now, what are you angry about? Write a list of ten things. What’s makes you want to strap on some kick fins and swim up towards the top?