Tuesday, December 2, 2014

#WeirdEd Week 34- Anger


I'll be honest, this chat stems from the Ferguson protests and the protests that have echoed out from it across the country. We might not directly discuss what is happening in those places, but we are going to hit the effects and possible causes. As such, this might not be as happy-fun-time as normal, but it will still be #WeirdEd. That means it's still a safe place. Have an opinion. Have a dissenting opinion. Then have a discussion. Jerks will be muted and blocked and not welcomed back. You're still free to take the conversation off in whatever direction you like, you know #WeirdEd is the Land of Side Chats.

Our kids get angry. We get angry. Anger, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. It's a healthy emotion. I don't think squashing emotions is the right way to go about life. Feel them and understand them. Acting on emotions is a completely different conversation and how that happens is largely what makes someone an adult versus a larger child.

Someone out there, because I know my audience, is going to go all Yoda on me."Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." And with all do respect to Master Yoda, sometimes anger is a positive emotion. IF you don't use it to go fight your father before you're ready and instead put it in the fuel tank.

So let's talk about why you're angry. Why kids get angry. Henry Rollins says he stays angry because it keeps his blood thin and his mind alert. George Carlin and later Louis Black (pictured above) made careers off being angry. Bands for generations used anger as grist for the mill.

But this is #WeirdEd. We are a positive people. So we are taking our anger and spinning it positively. Make it work for us. Feel a sense of injustice? Don't be paralyzed by it, use it to get up and go.


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