Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.  Matthew 5:5 

There are times it seems as if someone else has grabbed a hold of the steering wheel of our nation and just drove us off a cliff. We are no where near hitting bottom yet.  We are just moving in slow motion while the government is trying to figure out a way to limit the impact of the losses to the investors, and decide who has to pay for these losses, in the meantime, there are real human beings losing their homes and jobs every day that are suffering.  The human aspect of this loss is disheartening.  So many have worked hard for years to buy a home and save for their retirement to have their dreams taken away by circumstances beyond their control. Our home is the one safe place that we can retreat to at the end of the day to be with our loved ones.  When you take our home away then you mess with our sense of security. In essence some are not just losing a home, but they are losing a part of their identity.  I have said “You can take anything from me, but you can never take my dreams away.” and I still believe it.  I hope that we can find the strength and clarity to redefine what it means to be successful and live a fulfilling life. It’s difficult to imagine while you are in the middle of crisis, but you have everything that you need right now to survive.  I truly believe in the power of the spirit to overcome any adversity.

My step-father Ray, whom I have mentioned before in my previous post, because he forever changed my perspective of what a loving father is, worked very hard for us as a family.  My mother and he saved up, and bought a home. This was important to my mother, because she struggled as a single mom, we moved around a lot growing up, and so now she was finally able to officially settle down.  So they took pride in saving, buying their home and paying for their daughter’s college. They worked very hard and had finally paid the house off when Ray was 57 years old, and so Ray would talk about what he was going to do when he retired. He had been writing a book and was looking forward to retirement to do what he enjoys.

In September of 2007, Ray was at a family barbecue, and thought he had a stomach ache. After a rough couple of nights I took him in to emergency, and this was the beginning of the last 6 months of his life. He was diagnosed with a rare form of Carcinoid Cancer.  It’s a slow growing cancer, and if caught in the early stages then you can actually remove it completely, or live for several years with it. Unfortunately, his cancer had already spread through out his liver. There were warning signs that something was wrong a few years before, but he was misdiagnosed, so they treated him for the wrong symptoms because the cancer grew outside of his organs, and you could not see it through the ordinary tests.

 Sadly, the remaining months of Ray’s life were spent in surgeries and ICU. So I drove my mother to the hospital every night to be with him. We would go as soon as I was off work and then stay as late as we could. He had taken very good care of us, so I felt a sense of duty to make sure he had the best care possible. If you have ever had a loved one in the hospital, then you know how surreal and hectic it can be.  There are so many doctors and nurses coming and going that you have to keep track of their care and advocate for your loved one.  My mom was emotionally drained, so it was difficult for her to concentrate and to remember what the doctor said.  So I would help her with the decisions. I learned a lot about Carcinoid Cancer and helped Ray understand what was happening.  The medical information was easy for me ascertain. Nothing could prepare me for the true powerlessness that I felt as I searched for some way to alleviate the pain that he was suffering.  He was on life support, and heavily sedated for 2 months until he was strong enough to breathe on his own. He could only squeeze our hands to let us know if he was okay.  He could not talk because he had a tracheotomy from the 2nd emergency surgery, so he had to use a pen and pad of paper to communicate after he woke up.  He kept asking me when he could go home. I had to explain to him that he could not go home until he could breathe on his own.  He struggled, but then finally worked his way off the breathing machine and out of ICU, and then asked if he could go home now.  After he had a couple of bad nights they would not let us take him home.  After one difficult night I was sitting beside him while he was sleeping when I noted that all he had with him was the clothes and shoes that he was wearing when I brought him in to the hospital in a clear plastic bag.  I was staring at the bag with his name written on it thinking “Wow? Is that all he has with him? This is it?” He also had his glasses, a comb and a book that they kept losing, so we kept bringing him a new one in, along with newspapers, because he loved to read and watch boxing.  He was often too weak to read, so my sisters and I would take turns reading to him. To lift his spirits I would bring in a lottery ticket because he faithfully played the lottery every Tuesday and Friday for the 23 years that he was married to my mom. He use to say he was going to win it big for us. He looked forward to my visit and promptly asked me if I remember to bring the ticket when I walked in.  He would get this huge smile on his face each time I pulled the ticket out of my pocket.  It became our little ritual. I teased him one time that I forgot it, like a little kid searching for that magical quarter behind the ear, and he slapped my hand and so I pulled it out, and we laughed.

 It felt like time stood still at times during that 6 months, but Ray kept fighting and doing his physical therapy to get stronger, so he could go home.  All he wanted to do was go home and be with his family. I felt absolutely horrible that we could not take him home.  He never complained.  He taught me what it was like to die with dignity and grace. I would stay up to watch over him so my mom could sleep. So there he was laying in a gown and the socks that the hospital gave to him. So again it hits me “That’s it? He works his whole life and this is it? This is how it ends?”  It’s not fair. I was blown away by the fact that you work your whole life to achieve success.  You acquire an education, a career, buy a house, buy a car and all kinds of material possessions, but none of it comes with you when you leave this earth. You only take what God gave you.  Ray was grateful for every day he was alive and lived with exceptional integrity. He worked very hard to provide us with everything we needed.  I felt terrible that I could not honor his wish to be taken home to die.  Then one day while my mom, sisters, all of his grandchildren and I were all sitting around reading to him, and laughing together, he whispers “I am the richest man ever right now.”  He had everything that was important to him right there with him at that very moment. He could not be happier. He had his family surrounding him with love every day until he was finally taken to heaven. That is when I learned that your home is where your heart is.

I had a conversation with a gay man last week about Prop 8 and the state of the rainbow these days, and his coolness towards the subject really surprised me. He basically said that he wished people would be a bit more patient and give those who are afraid of homosexuals and gay marriage more time to adjust as these “alternate lifestyles” become more and more accepted into the mainstream. He appreciated when people didn’t cram their beliefs down his throat, so he didn’t believe in doing it to someone else.

While I completely agree with the idea of patience and acceptance of others’ beliefs, part of me still wondered whether anything would change without those who stand up, flail their arms and scream at the top of their lungs. I thought about that for a while, then after reading through the good ideas in the Anger 1-5 posts, I’ve tried to form some chain of causality in my head that results in large scale social change.

If we all picked sides, then sat back and didn’t do any down-throat-cramming of our perspectives, we’d all live in a state of passive discord. At some point, someone is taken over by passion for their point of view, stands up and starts shouting, and that’s where dissent gets tricky. One person shouting equals man on a soapbox—news pundits, for example—while everyone shouting equals a riot, like the Iranian election riots. Since everything has an equal and opposite reaction, you can anticipate that the more people are shouting about something, the greater the reaction will be from the side they are shouting against.

So what if something happens that affects a lot of people very deeply, but only one man gets up and shouts about it? What if only the Iranian pundit-du-jour made a fuss over the elections, and everyone who agreed with him sat back quietly and nodded, saying, “Oh, he’s right, but we just have to be patient.” If there hadn’t been such a large public outcry, they wouldn’t have gotten the rest of the world’s attention. Regardless of the outcome of those awful and tragic riots, there are a lot more people paying attention to the issues in Iran now.

But what if people rioted in the streets every time there was a social disagreement? If we were constantly screaming at each other, throwing rocks, and burning cars over every issue without any other course of action, we’d either burn out our passion so quickly that the fight would fizzle, or we’d create such a strong opposition against us that there would be no chance of what we’re actually saying ever being heard, and we’d just be fighting for fighting’s sake—look at Israel and Palestine and how hard it has been for them to back up and just have a discussion. When discord reaches that level, the opposing sides seem to be pushing harder and harder on opposite sides of a wall, and all of their effort goes toward holding the wall in place.

Social evolution needs the entire spectrum of dissent. We need everyone, from the big screaming crowds to the more reserved supporters, to move issues along, and the reason is that we don’t all identify with the same kind of passion. Some of us are really turned off by fanaticism, but still want to express some kind of support. Some of us find anything less than full out demonstration to be an insult to The Cause, whatever it may be. Personally, I identify with the passion of individuals on the ground, and can’t stand the soapboxery of pundits and speechwriters, but some people feel better hearing about the issues they support while staying out of view.

The important thing is that we support what we believe in, however that feels right to us.  We must all find where we belong on the spectrum, and not assume that dissent is one-size-fits-all.

If you have read parts 1-4 of this series and can understand where I am coming from about this perspective, this is the part that addresses what to actually do about it. These thoughts come from the perspective of suggestions for self-empowerment, and are in no way meant to suggest you should do these things my way, or any way but one that is consistent with the way you feel. Any suggestion here releases to concepts of non-violent protest as spearheaded by notables such as Dr. King and Gandhi. 
I think a lot about the Internet, because, let’s face it, it is the new town square. If there is a problem, it is that most of those who comment in the digital town square have a silly name and no face or address, or maybe they aren’t really 47 and come from Albany. You don’t really know who you are talking to. The jerk on the UFO website could very easily be a counter-intel psy-ops guy just doing his patriotic duty.   
So, let’s take for example the comments underneath any article at a mainstream news source. If you scroll down past the article, you can see strangers venting their spleens or hearts out into the digital tide, and, quite often, it’s a fairly good reflection of how incredibly brainwashed our cultures are in western civilization. That’s why polls tend to be fairly accurate, because the micro-sample represents the macro pretty well. Again, a sign of overall conformity to the same sets of beliefs and therefore knowledge of those tendencies enhances those who wish to control a greater advantage to do so, just like a blackjack dealer in Vegas. 
If you scroll down, the general dialogue in those tend to be lacking depth. Sometimes, someone will write something thoughtful, but then the next comment is the usual attack crap that lends nothing to the debate (if you can even call it that), and just poisons the air. So, using this as an example, what is a stronger course of action to bring Love and God into the picture without becoming attached to it? My suggestion is to lodge a very simple vote: either stop going to that website for your news, or, be active and post a comment that reflects in one sentence your commitment to reality. It can be as simple as John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s declaration that “War is over!” Try to start something real in an active mode that will catch on, just like any ad agency would: “The revolution will not be televised,” ”I only believe in one thing: Love!” Make this your peace sign in the digital world. If you are good, someone will rip you off, and you just might start a movement. 
So, that’s a little thing that could be a big thing in the right brilliant mind. Here are the big things: you are being lied to practically every second by the world around you. Even if you agree with me, what can you do about it? You can’t run around and scream at everyone “You are all liars!” (Actually, I tried that, and it didn’t work!) If you feel your institutions are built on things that are not reflective of what you KNOW to be true, how do you lodge a protest vote for real?
Rule #1 is you yourself must embody the truth. Make every move you make honest, whether it is brushing your teeth, or saying I love you. You’ll have to trust me on that one that that is where it all begins. 
Rule #2 is you must allow yourself to see the manipulations going on and why so many feel it is necessary to control you. As they used to say, take the wool from your eyes. 

Rule #3 is you must be active, you must do some-thing, even if it’s praying. You must be active in your dissent. 

Rule #4 is you must resist attacking others. This is a very difficult thing to do, because it is hard to defend yourself and not end up attacking. I am not perfect in this regard, but at least I try to be aware of its pitfall. Sometimes, you have to just say the truth and that does not imply attack. If it comes from a true place. But, honestly, all attack is false, because God does not attack. 
Rule #5 is you express your dissent as an individual. You let the world know that you are not owned by anyone or anything. If you must work within a system, be clear what your objectives are. 

Rule #6 is don’t let anyone lie to you. Don’t make excuses for their lies or distortions, whether it’s the President, your teacher, or Jack from Jack in the Box. Come to think of it, Jack seems pretty honest. If someone believes the propaganda, then they believe what is coming out of their mouths. That doesn’t necessarily make them liars, but it does make them sort of a dark accomplice. 
Rule #7 is you cannot be defeated in the eyes of God. God knows your heart if it is good, kind of like Santa and his x-ray powers! Jokes aside, your life is your choice to make. If you want to help others, the most radical thing you can do is say “NO.” No to anything that isn’t rooted in Love: NO to war, NO to violence, NO to cruelty, NO to abuse, NO to thievery, NO to anonymous power, NO to anything that disgraces the inner right of a human being to live happy and free. 
Rule #8 there are no rules!

Rule #9 Joy is a choice that can be made. 

Rule #10 be creative and help build a world that you want to live in with others in harmony. Be a radical with Love, a patriot with Forgiveness, a zealot with Grace.

My sister recently sent me a hilarious pamphlet she found in upstate New York entitled “Living with Bears”. It’s all about how to coexist with the indigenous and migrating bears that sometimes mosey into the wooded neighborhoods of New York, and why bears behave the way they do. It says things like:

“What should I do if I see a bear? Don’t panic. Bears are more likely to be afraid of you than you are of them.”

“Never approach, surround, or attempt to touch a bear. Always leave a clear escape route for the bear.”

“How to prevent bear problems: Proper storage of garbage and removal of bird feeders are the two most important steps you can take to drastically reduce nuisance bear problems in your area.”

And so forth.

Once I got over how funny it was, I started thinking about how much easier life would be if we gave ourselves permission to objectify the differences between each culture, gender, and lifestyle in this same manner, distilling it all into a three-fold pamphlet that we could each hand out.

I guess the first thing people are afraid of is that by objectifying the differences between people, they would be accused of being racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. As a comedian, I have a bit of license to go at these topics with greater abandon, however as a person, and a white American one, I have felt the cultural conditioning that is “treat everyone exactly the same”. While I agree with that idea from a human rights perspective, from a cultural perspective, it’s actually a bit insensitive when you look more closely at what it means. The truth is that culture shock can be extremely upsetting. We’re so concerned with not offending different cultures that we don’t know how to react when the differences bother us, i.e. pretending to be indifferent and behaving passive aggressively while the indexical shock grates on our nerves, when we could just point these differences out in objective terms and address them head on.

I wrote a bit about cultural indexicality before, and how certain types of behavior mean different things in different cultures, for example, how some Russian women I used to work with found whistling indoors to be extremely offensive. What if, on the first day I met them, they handed me the pamphlet “Living with Russians”, which explained the many superstitions they have involving whistling? Conversely, I could have handed them my “Living with Americans” pamphlet, which would explain that we generally like to do whatever we please when it comes to our personal space, and we may seem insensitive to a culture that has a lot of customs or superstitions, however we are not fond of people we don’t know well making extremely personal remarks about our looks or body (they all felt the need to point out every time I gained or lost a pound, and it drove me nuts).

However, this raises another problem: after the pamphlets are distributed, we’d have to figure out who is “right”, and who should concede to alter their behavior. In the case of the whistling incident, should I be sensitive to the Russians’ superstition, or should they be more willing to conform to the local culture?

That, of course, is trickier. But if we were allowed to objectify these differences, instead of being aware of them but forced to pretend as if we aren’t, I think we’d be more content to make choices based on these objective, impersonal pieces of information than we are with all of the unspoken differences we deal with now. A lot of the cultural and interpersonal ego battles that prevent us from getting along stem from a deep desire to be understood for the simplest things without having to go out of our way to call attention to and explain them.

I’d personally love to hand out a “Living with Ve” pamphlet to everyone I meet. It would say things like, “Ve is prone to extreme moodiness and lack of focus before noon.” and “Store sugary food in tight containers and keep them in a secure place out of Ve’s field of vision lest she will, due to an overactive enthusiasm for candy, be forced to devour your sweets as soon as you turn around.” (Somehow I think the above two statements may be connected, but I digress.)

Think of how easy social life would be if we were allowed to make these pieces of information so objective and distant from our egos! What would your “Living with…” pamphlet say?

Since there’s currently no government subsidy for such pamphlets, maybe for now we can just try to see the differences between us, our lifestyles and our cultures as objective things, and not let them rule our relationships, or get under our skin. As with bears, acknowledgment and acceptance of our differences is the key to Living with Humans.

If that is what I appear to be saying, I would say that that is close, but not quite it. I am saying, first and foremost, that you must be willing to look at the ecosystem of a gross and tragic world that uses death, fear, and judgment to manipulate you out of your God given rights of happiness and freedom. Mankind does not appear to be solving any time in the near future the issues of war, famine, debt, hate based on race, and so on. And I am suggesting that those things are worth being angry about, because, quite frankly, you and I deserve better. But, I am not suggesting that we should think like victims. What I am suggesting is that we assume personal responsibility for how we unwittingly condone and possibly participate in those systems which enslave us, and how personal transformation based in love and recognition of your responsibilities to others can have an effect on real and lasting change. 
So, yes, it’s easy if you look at the bigger frames around you to find those you disagree with and those that agree with you. As long as you get suckered in by those lower arguments, you are lost because you stop too soon. The government exists as some form of elaborate puppetry serving masters we cannot see, so don’t stop there. Take it to the top, go all the way down the line to find the unseen adversaries that stand behind those who appear to be doing the talking. I guarantee they are counting on you getting lost in the maze. 
And what shall you do if and when you find the wizard behind the curtain? You will choose to not be afraid. That is your greatest power. Remember, concern is not the same as fear. Concern means you are in possession of certain facts, and weighing your options. 
The last post, pt 5, will deal with what you can actually do to properly manifest your anger and find ways to form a peaceful and civil disobedience that represents your real desire for a peaceful planet.

The other day I was sitting near the ocean on some deep black rocks that had been formed where molten lava had met the sea, a snapshot of a collision from who knows how many millions of years back. I was enjoying sitting on my little isthmus where, out of the corner of my eye, I detected a little movement. It was a crab about the size of my hand moving along the sea line. He was almost impossible to spot when he moved, because he was the exact color of the rock. On his back were some markings that looked like the shield of an ancient African warrior. He was invisible, but, if you saw him, he looked fierce.

If you have ever found a dead crab along the shore and picked it up, it is surprising how light they are. Their weight is all in their aggressive life force.

In part 2, I made reference to the local cultures that surround us, drawing the simple parallel that conformity is death, because it allows systems of power to enslave us in predictable patterns of behavior. This, in turn, makes us weak, because we are cut off from the internal voicing that tells us we deserve more than what is so readily handed to us. I identify that voice from within as a little sliver of God consciousness trying to be heard.

If you are reading this, chances are you have a laptop or a nice home computer. Chances are you aren’t living under a bridge. I’m going to assume you have some form of power, because, at the very least, you’ve demonstrated the power to click on this website and read.

Let me tell you, there is more power in that than you know. Most propaganda these days comes through the eyes. Have you noticed there aren’t as many parades as there used to be? No need, when there can be a parade of absolute junk placed in front of you daily to keep you medicated and placated.

If you draw a line of frustration from within yourself to the very top of what ails you, for example, a company that is polluting your air, or a runaway government, that line must pass through the smaller culture around you that says that it is ok. They say ok through saying nothing. The more we think that leaving a comment on a blog is protest, the more we play right into the hands of those that hold the strings.

I respect anyone with an opinion who wants to play by the basic rules of moral decency. I, too, used to believe in the idea that I could profit from attacking someone or something. From time to time, I will still mouth off, but, honestly, it has never gotten me anywhere. If I say anything these days, it is probably because I can’t resist gloating when hypocrites get their karma bill in the mail. Hopefully, I will grow out of that soon as well.

So far, in pts. 1, 2, and 3 of this little series, I have talked a lot about a state of mind, but have offered little in the way of action. That is because the proper state of mind is the majority of the action that must take place.

So, let me illustrate a simple beginning to what kind of action I am talking about, coming from a holistic state of mind. I will go back to the coffeehouse, and our happy ‘laptop’ couple drinking their drinks like two peas in a self-absorbed pod. For the sake of dignity, I will skip over what band they are probably currently listening to because it makes them feel smart. As I said, I hope to grow out of my need to illustrate even that minor point. But I jest…

Ok, so, you walk in and spot this happy pair, and you feel angry. Some would say, “What is worth getting angry about? Just mind your own business and move on, blah blah.” I’ve heard all that junk for years about how I should just worry about myself, and I’m not so perfect, and who am I to judge, blah blah.

You see, I have to understand that it is these two, sitting right next to me, that are fucking me up good. Now, is it just these two? No. There are many more of them from whence they came. They must mass produce them in a factory somewhere. But yes, these two, sitting right next to me while I sip my iced green tea, are fucking me. They may not realize it, but they might as well be hacking into me with whips.

If you have made it this far, I commend you! Thank you for giving this a chance to be understood; these are hard points to make, and it took me a long time to figure them out for myself. So, let me take a small step back and say this: my anger against this couple is not personal. I don’t want to hurt them, slander them, or anything of the sort. I wish that they were not enslaved to systems that are hurting them. My anger comes from the fact that their subservience to a false god is making it almost impossible for me to be free, to live as happy as possible.

So, first and foremost, there is a spiritual lesson here, the lesson of detachment, proper detachment. I can not look at this couple as my enemy. I can not see them as anything but the divine beings that they are. First, I must serve God and His understanding above my limited mortal one. So, sitting there watching them, I am not thinking to myself, “I hope they die.” Rather, I am thinking compassionately, “I hope they live.”

You can spot conformity a mile away. It is pretty rare to see a saint walking around in khaki pants. But, let’s just say this couple is cooler than that. They go to art galleries, and they don’t just order any drink, they get theirs custom made. Heck, they even blog! My anger comes from the fact that they are not free. My anger comes from the fact that they have sold themselves on a loving union based in their own reflection. My anger comes from the fact that, by thinking they are free because they choose one candidate over another, they made a choice. My anger comes from the fact that the pills they take at night to help them sleep are shortening years off their life, not to mention running poison into the groundwater. The list is endless.

I am furious, because, deep down, they don’t really want to know! They donate after one disaster far, far away, while ignoring the disaster that lives just down the road from them. You know, the people who don’t have laptops who live under the bridge.  Why can’t we care about everyone equally?

Yes, you gotta get mad at the people who don’t want to see clearly. You gotta allow yourself to feel that indignation for how a thousand little surrenders make it impossible to affect any real change. Look around you and see that nothing is going to change as long as the majority doesn’t mind that we are not only living in the End Times, but that we are all making sure we each get a starring role. But I jest again…

In pt 1 of this series, I targeted the easy marks of the government and the media as places to start, but, working from within to without, let’s start a little smaller and identify those issues that are within closer reach. To refer to the neighborhoods we grew up in, or the social circles we hang out in currently, I’ll just use the general word ‘culture’. I hope you’ll get my drift in the way that I use it. Here is an example:

You walk into your local coffeehouse. You see a couple sitting together, both on their laptops. He is drinking a double frappe mochaccino with a shot of espresso, and she is having a green tea. They are dressed exactly as you would expect them to be dressed.

They represent part of your culture, whether you want them to or not, or whether or not that is you sitting there with your loved one – so yes, the culture that you encounter in your immediate vicinity. Is that couple worth getting angry about? And what does it matter what they do, how they act, and what they drink?

The easy answer is that it doesn’t matter. It will be tricky to show you though why those things are worth getting angry about. Take for example your family. Unlike me, many people are close to and get along fairly well with their family, and wouldn’t have many bones to pick with their cousins or siblings other than little things not even worth mentioning. If you have been raised well, what would be worth getting angry about with them?

So, for your immediate culture, we’ll identify your local world: the coffeehouse, your family and friends, the neighborhood where you live, that sort of thing. And, just to be clear, I am not talking only about the straight world; I am also referring to alternative cultures and lifestyles, whether you hang out with punk rockers or goths or whatever. Whatever culture you find yourself in, that is what I am talking about – those immediate places and faces that you can touch and can touch you. The question becomes, “If I like where I live, like my surroundings, my dog, and my local coffeehouse, and my mom, and the school I grew up in, what does any of that have to do with being angry?”

Unfortunately, they are all part of the problem, and I can say that, pretty readily knowing that there are some exceptions. Whether they understand it or not, or whether you can easily see what I am saying or not, all these things mentioned are part of the smaller ends of the system that feed the larger systems that hover over us with control.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you get mad at your cousin for eating processed food and listening to some horrible award-winning band that he has spoon fed. Is it his fault that he is contributing to the demise of civilization?

Ok, I’m joking here, but I am only trying to illustrate the point that you must honestly identify those things around you that are not only hurting the people you love and the area you grew up in or the area you now call home, because they are also helping to feed something much larger that is hurting you.

Going back to the cousin who eats genetically-modified, corn syrup-laced doughnuts because, even though he knows they are bad for him, he “likes the taste.” Should any responsibility be assigned to him? The answer is yes. Being willing to see how the culture around you is contributing to what is wrong right now can help righteously sustain your anger, because it is hurting those near and dear to you.

So, without much doubt, the culture close to you is hurting you, hurting itself, and aiding and abetting systems that enslave us. And that should make you quite angry indeed. Conformity to anything means someone else is pulling the strings, and all they have to do is find the right string to pull. There is nothing Love-based in manipulation. Love has nothing to do with how someone convinces you to buy something, or eat something without telling you that it is going to help destroy your kidney. These are not little crimes against humanity, but one big fraud against humanity.

They, whoever they are, need us, whoever we are, to believe that we aren’t worth much at all. And they seem to be doing a very good job.

So how does an idea like ’self-righteous anger’ apply to big thoughts like Love and Anger (the good kind of anger, for an explanation of SRA as I define it, please see the previous post)? Love, by its very mandate, is righteous; it IS the right by which we exist. Anger has its just moments, although they are far and few between. There are moments in time, however, that call for strong decisions to be made, where we as a human race are to be called to work together to really take on injustice in many ways.

There is always talk about how problems need to be solved – by the government, by the media, by celebrities through the media – yet, ironically, many of these problems never get solved. So, step one I am asking you to take is to take this leap of faith with me: these problems don’t get solved because there are many that benefit from them not being solved! Let that sink in for a second. Think about it: if everyone on Earth decided to tackle hunger, it would be solved within a year or so. That’s a fact. IF, IF everyone wanted it solved. That’s a big IF.

Those kinds of ideas invite instant questions, as they should. But the fact remains, if we collectively wanted to solve those problems, we could. But, deep down, we must face how we contribute or, even better, look the other way on these issues. I don’t say that because I think you should feel guilty. I say it because I think we should feel truth, we should experience truth.

Now, this is not some kind of lame ‘people have the power’ type speech. People don’t have the power. Yes, you read me right: people don’t have the power, because they have given it away, long before you and I were born. Given it away for security or convenience, but yes, the power has been given away, so this is to talk about how to reclaim it. After all, you can certainly begin to reclaim your power. That choice you can make.

So, I’m going to ask this question to myself: how does one begin by applying the right kind of anger within?

Well, that’s a little tricky, because, done from the wrong place, it turns into guilt or shame or self-abuse. You have to start by identifying that which is yours and that which isn’t. Things that are not ‘yours’ involve ideas given to you by your family or culture, barbs wrapped in implied commitments or obligations. Try to let go of every idea you have picked up along the way.

If you can kind of do that, even just a little, you’ll see that what’s left is what you think of yourself, as you are, to yourself. If you are harsh in your assessment, try to be kind so that the point I am circling around can be made.

If you can find this spot within yourself that says, “I matter, my life is an opportunity, I don’t want to waste it, I want to know what God wants from me,” that is soil this seed can grow from. Your seed can easily grow into, “I don’t like what I see, injustice in this world offends me, I will not stand for being lied too.” The anger is not to be applied to you. Instead, the anger is to come from you from the fresh spring of your right to positively and actively shape your world.

You have a right to be angry. Identify that right, and the decisions that can be made afterward will be rooted in the Divine Right for Peace.

There are many forms of anger, and, for the sake of simplicity, let’s just say most of them are bad, especially if they lead to any form violence, be it a mentality that leads to the attack of another, or even to that of self-harm. Anger usually shows a lack of control, and, if you are lucky enough to read sometimes the comments people leave after some tragedy has befallen an individual, you’ll know there is plenty of the wrong kind of anger to go around.

The earthquake in Haiti has invariably led to unfortunate public comments that reveal a true lack of empathy by some in our society to the plight of others. But massive human displacement is an easy idea to sympathize with and understand when you have so many helpless against the seemingly benign force of nature. The width of that situation against the bad apples who use it to politicize their racist eugenics is easy to spot.

Harder to identify, but no less insidious, is the anger of entitlement. The right by one to throw stones against the positive goals of the group without taking any personal responsibility for how they might help impact the whole of society. The Internet is a wonderful tool for entitlement, for anyone can do or say anything without much responsibility at all, including what I’m doing here. Standing on this digital soapbox is mostly free. I say ‘mostly’, because not all of what I say goes unaccounted for. Contribution to the whole requires risk most don’t want to take.

Anger, generally speaking, says “I have a right! You owe me! How dare you?! Who are you to tell me?!” There are a few situations in life where one does earn the right to be downright angry, and it makes sense to let the hurt come up with adrenaline so that those emotions can be put in the proper context. But self-righteous anger is different, and that’s why I have gone to great lengths to present it here. I hope that my thoughts on it reach you in the way I intend.

Now, I’m no expert on the Bible. In fact, I’ve barely read it at all. I consider the Aquarian Gospels of Jesus the Christ a more reliable source, and, if you are curious, check that book out if you have a chance. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes, I’m no biblical scholar, but I do have a few stories from it that I truly love. My very favorite is when Jesus goes to the temple and confronts the people selling things outside of it. He knocks over their tables, whips them, and drives them out. He tells them (sorry Jesus, I’m paraphrasing), “This is a Holy place, you have no right here.”

The way I have always interpreted this story is that there is a time where that kind of raw, righteous anger is justified. Now, I’m not talking about violence, because Lord knows I cannot differentiate between good and bad violence. But I have sat on the mountain for awhile to think this over, and I do think I can speak on the right kind of anger versus the wrong kind. So, simply said, I think it is time to get really pissed off.

Let’s say you accept the basic premise that I’m suggesting, that it is a time in the culture of man to get genuinely angry about the world around us. That it is time to get furious at the way things are going. That it is the right moment to go to the temples and holy places we hold dear, and throw out the forces and entities that plague us. Let’s say you are a-ok with the premise that there are things right-fucking-now to get angry about.

Alright, then what? How does this manifest itself into action? What are some proper, holistic steps to take in life that involve self-righteous anger? I promise to outline 5 steps of civil disobedience – a course of action made manifest – that we all can start considering to display our inner Holy tough guy. I’ll outline these 5 ideas one at a time, and suggest why they might make some kind of sense to take against the darkness.

However, as I drove on the freeway today in what was probably the most
incredible rainstorm I’ve ever seen in LA, I occasionally felt
overwhelming pangs of panic in my chest. My heart felt like it was
about to explode, and parts of my brain were screaming at each other
that something horrible was happening. The rain was epic, but this
feeling of panic was not precipitated (no pun intended) by any events
in particular, or by a lack of bad weather driving experience, and so
I felt that I was having an irrational physiological response to a
sudden change of conditions, the rain and flooded streets, layered
upon another rather large sudden change of conditions, moving across
the world; my mental conduit for properly interpreting the changes in
my environment was inflamed.

All of this got me thinking about the physiological causes of vertigo,
like labyrinthitis, or inflammation of the inner ear. The name stuck
out as a fantastic metaphor: we navigate through the labyrinth of
life, feeling as if we know where we’re going only to find sometimes
that we don’t recognize where we are and can’t see how we got there,
and so we feel disoriented and panicked because we can’t tell which is
the right direction. What I find really interesting about
labyrinthitis is that the prolonged vertigo associated with it can
directly cause anxiety, panic attacks and even depression because of
the brain’s chronic misinterpretation of sensory input, i.e.
perceiving physical danger where there is none.

A common treatment for labyritnthitis-related anxiety and depression
is the same as clinical anxiety and depression, which is to prescribe
anti-depressives. I’m not proposing this as a commentary on depression
medication in general, but it seems a bit strange to treat depression
resulting from a physiological condition the same as emotional
depression, and I think that’s telling of our symptom-obsessed culture
(and the industries that encourage it).

The problem with only addressing symptoms is that we sometimes don’t
look deeply enough past the symptoms, whether emotional or physical,
to see what is causing them in order to find a real solution, and can
end up covering deep wounds with band-aids. That might mean treating
the symptoms of chronic vertigo while the cause worsens, or in my
case, it might mean treating the panic I felt on the freeway without
addressing the deeper anxiety from moving across the world, or even
more deeply, why that move provokes so much anxiety in the first
place.

Generally, it’s been shown that people who feel that their condition
is out of their control are less likely to improve than those who try
to have some positive control, and it’s as true for life vertigo as it
is for medical vertigo. A patient who doesn’t believe that they can be
helped is no better off than a panicked driver who lets go of the
steering wheel or a weary job hunter who doesn’t submit a resume; if
we want to get through it, we have to try. For me, that meant
looking past the panic, taking deep breaths and calming myself down so
that I could navigate through the rain safely, keeping in mind that my
body was overreacting due to deeper causes. And for all of us, it
means not letting the overwhelming feelings from the changes in our
lives take control of our perceptions so that we can navigate forward
through the labyrinth of life, even when we’re not entirely sure which
direction forward is.