How many of us have been feeling like this, lately?
Like, maybe it would feel just great to smash some office buildings? Crush some parked cars? Laugh at the frightened little people with their impotent weapons?
Well, don’t feel guilty about it. We were meant to relish our rage.
Gratitude and positive thinking will ruin your life, if you let them.
A few centuries ago, a Sufi poet named Rumi compared the human psyche to a “Guest House” where unexpected guests — Joy, Anger, Sorrow — were dropping by, day after day.
…The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
I’ve been keeping the door unlocked and the windows open, lately, hoping that some of my more depressing guests might take the hint and head out, to make room to Joy and Happiness to come spend the night. (In the guest bedroom, of course. Nothing kinky going on.)
Then I came across a 2017 Quartz.com article by author Lila MacLellan, titled “Accepting Your Darkest Emotions is the Key to Psychological Health”.
When I came across this article, I was already in a crappy mood, as the result of a phone call from my (psychic?) ex-wife Darlene. I suggest the word “psychic” because Darlene seems to somehow sense whenever I’m in a jovial state of mind… and she either calls me, or stops by, to prevent my happiness from getting out of hand.
By the end of our conversations, I am typically feeling like Godzilla.
But supposedly, my darkest emotions can be the “key to psychological health”… if I can simply “accept them”. Is that how I’m understanding this whole thing? Rumi seems to suggest that I laugh right in their faces. Assuming that dark emotions even have faces? (Poetry can be confusing.)
I have tried laughing right in Darlene’s face, on rare occasions. Friends, let me warn you… don’t try this at home.
One additional problem. I’ve typically found it difficult to laugh convincingly when I am feeling like Godzilla. But maybe we are misunderstanding the Big Guy. Isn’t it entirely possible that he’s laughing uproariously, as he smashes the city into dust?
Now that I look more closely… he appears to be… whooping it up…?
I bet he’s been reading Rumi.
Or maybe, he had came across this same Quartz.com article by Ms. MacLellan, where she talks about some scientists in California doing a study. They recruited 156 volunteers for a lab experiment, and surprised them by giving them a public speaking assignment.
A hell of a thing to do to volunteers, if you ask me. But of course, these were scientists. What do we expect?
“We had people show up and we told them, ‘By the way, you’re going to give a three-minute speech pretending you’re at a job interview and you have to talk about your verbal and written communication skills,’” Ford says. The hypothesis was that those who had been identified as more accepting of their negative mental states would report less severe negative emotions, which was proven to be true. Again, the researchers were building on the work of other psychologists, but, they also tested the robustness of the accepting method by ensuring that at least half of the selected participants had experienced a major negative experience, such as being cheated on or losing their jobs in the months before the study.
Apparently, these researchers thought people would be “happier” — or maybe, “more productive”? — if they’d learned the “accepting method.” Whatever that might be. You learn how to “accept” losing your job or being cheated on, and the world is a sunnier place.
Maybe that works for some people; I can’t say. I’m not a scientist.
But for me, I just want to stomp some office buildings.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.