Plague Redux 5

I’m so tired and bored with being angry, yet how can one not be angry when so much is in jeopardy, like democracy, the planet, the future, jobs and income and health and our grandchildren, you know, little things. A roiling  time. Like the souls in Dante's Purgatory, we are buffeted by prevailing winds, unable to settle. What to do? Of course, I’ve concocted a lifetime of temporary ways to handle this anger but, still, it’s always there, lurking, and will pounce, wrap itself around me like a python, and try to squeeze me to death. Let's work this thing out. If I’m not angry, does it mean I don’t care? Nothing like anger to convince a guy he’s right. I have this theory, or I used to, that the working definition of Hell was being angry and bitter the instant of your death, like your final thought before total and eternal nothing is your third wife making it with the pool boy. At the end, you die mad. Well, I don’t want to die mad, but does that mean I may need to withdraw from it all, put my total attention to the birds and trees and not the lethal shitheads who run our world? Am I supposed to just kumbaya my way through a multitude of future 24/7's until Nature has had enough and pulls my plug? Who’s gonna shake their fist and yell if I’m not there? Here's a tough one. Does the time ever come when a person feels they’ve done enough? Maybe some people, but the regrets I have are from when I didn't do enough. Whatever happens from now on out, whatever I do, it's gonna take some doing it differently. Remember that Jimmy Buffet song, “A Pirate Looks At Forty”? Well, how ‘bout a pirate looks at...at...uh...well, at a lot more than - what was that number? I forget. It's not uncommon.
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My take is that being angry is properly righteous. Anger gives you nobility. It's recreational, but that doesn't make it fun. Back in colonial North Carolina a hypochondriac was known as "enjoyin' poor health". You’re incensed. All’s wrong with the world. It’s awful, and it feels great. ("Gimme a beer. I pulverized the sumbitch! Yo.)  Yeah, revenge feels great, except it's not exactly what you expected, and, funny thing, you really don't feel that good after all. Anger sears the soul like a branding iron, and we love it because it means, “We’re right”. Questions? Go ask Darwin.

Some time ago, in the eighties, Studio 54 days, I heard, was told, or read in some self help book, “Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?” What a ridiculous question! How can I be happy if I’m right but have to keep my mouth shut? Matter of Principle. Matter of Truth. Truth. Principle. Principle. Truth. Yeah. Yeah. But I want to be happy! How much? A lot. Enough to give up reading the New York Times every day? Enough to ignore Rachel? Enough to put aside hatred as blood sport? Admit it. We want to beat the shit out of those shitball bastards. You rip a child from its family you deserve to have your balls liberated by a steel-toed boot, and you damn well want your foot in that boot. Admit it. How to just walk away? How to stay informed? Got to know things. Got to be a proper citizen. Got to vote. To make decisions. To take action. To be "Right". Like a lot of people, I've been consumed by the news: print, digital, cable, radio, internet, hearsay. News in the morning. News in the evening. News when driving. News when waiting. News when. Who else feels as if they're not doing their civic duty if they're not impaled by the news? Guilty because I'm  not watching a refugee camp in Eritrea? Why? I know what it looks like, and I know why it exists.

Like that guy from the Farmer’s insurance commercial, “We know a thing or two because we’ve seen a thing or two.” Well, by now, I know more than a thing or two. I really don't need to know more "things" because they're all just more "things" to know, and I already know the underlying reason. It's always the same. And it's simple: people treat other people like shit. 

Hillel was a great Hebrew sage and scholar who lived in 1st century BC, Babylon. Compare his words with the words of Christ some hundred years later, and see how much Jesus was influenced by his teachings. A man who was considering converting to Judaism went to Hillel and said, "Tell me the entire Torah while I'm standing on one leg." The man then locked his left leg against his right calf. Hillel said, "What is hateful to you do not do to your neighbor: that is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary. Go and learn it."

Go and learn it.

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