rigorousintuition.ca

I'm interested to know, among this group of politically minded and oft-outraged smart people, how many of you have been accused of being "An Angry Person?"

Do you hear this as a response to the things you are concerned about? When you bring up something outrageous that the gov't is doing, or that a neighbour does, or whatever, do people respond to you by answering you on topic or do they just label you 'angry' and try to get you to drop it?

Is it a denial tactic? Evasion of personal responsibility? What? Because it seems to me that it should be okay for someone to be moved to anger by injustice.. or to focus for a few moments on something negative that is happening in one's environment.

It's a sore point for me so I want to hear how you all deal with it, that is if you've come face to face with it before and I'm not simply a truly angry person that's just rightfully being called out on her bullshit.

Yes, I get that a lot, even when I'm being calm, offhand, polite.

Angry... bitter... cynical... pessimistic...

For saying innocuous things like "it's unfortunate when the poor vote for right-wingers" or "global warming may be a theory, but proof is accumulating" or "I don't think North Americans really know or care at all about foreign wars anymore" or "governments are under corporate control."

And family and peers treat me like a fucking skunk. Most "nice" people want the kid who says 'the emperor's got no clothes' to SHUT UP.

It's almost a disease, this thing where people think being 'agreeable' is ALWAYS right.

Or: "The mayor's an idiot."

Me: "I dunno, I think she's doing pretty well with that Council, the downloading of services, the shrinking tax-base."

"You're always so POLITICAL. Anyway, I think she's an idiot."

norton ash wrote:Yes, I get that a lot, even when I'm being calm, offhand, polite.

Angry... bitter... cynical... pessimistic...

For saying innocuous things like "it's unfortunate when the poor vote for right-wingers" or "global warming may be a theory, but proof is accumulating" or "I don't think North Americans really know or care at all about foreign wars anymore" or "governments are under corporate control."

And family and peers treat me like a fucking skunk. Most "nice" people want the kid who says 'the emperor's got no clothes' to SHUT UP.

I do think that it's possible to be both.....with practice.

I get called 'cynical' quite a bit. And it's usually by neo-liberals who, if they ever made the effort to examine their philosophies with any kind of consistency, would have to admit that they believe people are fundamentally untrustworthy and nasty. It's just that they refuse to believe that about white people in suits.

It's actually not a hard argument to win, keep at it.

I probably use the words fuck, fuckin', fuck a fucking a, motherfucking fuck, what in the living fuck, what a fucking fuck, look at this motherfucker, etc hundreds and hundreds of times a day. No fucking shit. It's my favorite fucking word in the whole English language. I like to fucking put the fucking word fuck between fuckin' every fucking last word that isn't the word fuck every motherfucking chance I fucking get.

You get the point. Aren't I so cool? I kinda speak like that fucking asshole on that Hell's Kitchen show -- who I absolutely hate vis a vis how honestly evil he is to the cooks on his show. That guy is a fuck and I would totally tell that fucker to go fuck himself, having worked in the industry as long as I have.

But my industry is one where I must be perpetually kind, understanding, so not being angry or not acting so angry is pretty easy for me, because I never ever say "fuck you" to someone's face under any circumstances -- only as a joke or in ribbing. As in, I would never cut someone down. I'm not here on Earth to hurt anyone's feelings and as far as I know, I've never made a single enemy in all of my life. There are various people who don't get me at first, but I adapt and eventually they come around to see that in all true reality, no matter how angry I may sound, no matter what fucking injustice or lack of logic and empathy I may get upset about, it's just the way I talk.

I pick and choose my political conversations though. I can easily converse with a conservative as much as I can a liberal. But you know who I hate the most anymore? Liberals, sniveling liberals. They are an embarrassment. Why? Because they're not even fucking liberal or leftist or whatever. So I fall back on sports talk, talk of earthquakes, have you ever read PKD, OH I love Carl Sagan!, can you believe this weather, did you hear about the mudslides in China, did you hear Ted Stevens died in a plane crash, etc etc. . .

You wanna know what my liberal friends said around a table a while back about me? 82_28, YOU'RE ALWAYS THE BEARER OF BAD NEWS. Then everybody at the table agreed. I said no, I'm not! I'm just telling you what I fucking read earlier and thought it was fucking interesting.

My girlfriend's brother had a meltdown on Christmas day with me. He said, "I am so fucking sick and tired of your conspiracies and your weird ideas." Which I normally respond to such things with a "Well, you can't shake a stick at that. Duly noted." type thing.

Anyhow. . .

Fuck em' all to fucking hell. I do, think, talk and love how I please. I love everybody unless you happen to be evil. I feel like I am a good judge of evil people. I rarely get angry, I just sound like it!

Most people don't say anything about me to me, because apart from family and an ever-diminishing circle of friends I'm too anti-social to approach. Though I'm actually a rather good-natured pessimist.

People tell me I'm yelling when in actual observable fact I'm not.

Jeff wrote:Most people don't say anything about me to me, because apart from family and an ever-diminishing circle of friends I'm too anti-social to approach (the microphone). Though I'm actually a rather good-natured pessimist.

A Sonnet to Jeff:



One thing I do to drive my girlfriend crazy is just start rattling off the beginning of these lyrics. "Easily I approach. . ."

Then she screams "stop it". Well not screams. But you know. Punches me and shit.

That song is all Jeff though, btw and essentially the "spirit" of RI.

It's actually somewhat interesting to me that one of the reasons I gravitated to RI is the presence of Guerrilla Records on his blog roll. I've played Paris albums to so many people over the years, it doesn't seem to make the dent to them he makes to me. I always think I'll break through to people with some music, some "weed" (back in the day), some beer, some conversation. Nobody has ever wanted to bend into seeing the "propaganda matrix" for the 20 years I have been trying. Some however, come along on their own, but of course they naturally gravitate to troof sites and forums. Dunno what to do about that one though yet. I do what I can to help people feel as though it is ok to be kind yet angry and independent from any party or ideal. I guess just the righteous left wing punk ethos of equal parts cynicism and idealism. Not the most successful way to go about life, but here I am.

Rigor, intuition, humor and a thick skin.

I think a lot of people get accused of being "an angry person" — usually by even angrier people (especially passive-aggressive types of angry people).

Maybe it's a little like the narcissist who likes to try and name other people as "narcissists." (It reminds me a bit of the fat kid on the playground who liked to point out other fat kids — the hidden reason being his hope that people wouldn't then identify him as "the fat kid" so much.)

Well, it's a little bit, probably a lot a bit, about always living your life for "thinking too much" and "being too sensitive".

This is what I would say to my ex who would routinely call me "too sensitive":

Fuck you! Of course I am fucking sensitive. You would be too if you had to deal with this mind god gave me. Huge flareups of extreme harm OCD do not help matters in a relationship btw. I couldn't sleep in the same bed as her for over a year. Finally she dumped me.

Sensitive isn't sexy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrusive_thoughts

Not one goddamned thing you can do about an intrusive thought when you have OCD btw.

Let's face it, no news is good news. If you're paying attention, it's an ugly, ugly mess down here for the vast majority of the individuals who make their way through life on this planet. Anyone who takes the time to really try to understand the world is gonna know that. It's like that thing, where in the back of your mind you know that perhaps 15,000 children have starved to death since this thread began at noon today. It can be disheartening and angry making, and even moreso to watch the day to day lives of your fellows in privilege go on with little thought of what the reality is in the world.

But if you care about people, then you have to take into account that not everyone is game for unwrapping this parade of chinese boxes. I think there's a place where you can have an awareness, and be willing to spread that awareness through your speech and actions fearlessly, and still be a cheerleader for the human race. That alone should wind up making you, if not a happy person to be around, at least a lot of fun.



You know, "no revolution without dancing" and all that.

82_28 that was fucking hilarious. thank fuck you're part of this board!
and don't get me wrong, I do not climb aboard people - ever - for their views. I mean sometimes if it's a very close friend or family member I'll challenge their viewpoints with the sort of "yeah but don't you think..." if they are on the opposite side of an issue from me.

I resent the 'angry' label being thrown around in the way that "bitter and lonely" was thrown at feminists when there was still a feminist movement. ie:

facebook post: "think about writing to your MPP to demand accountability for the police abuses at the G20"
facebook response: "You are angry"
end of responses.

that type of thing. People are totally cool with "I just ate the best cheese sandwich!" posts, or "My great-neice twice removed just had twins!" or "Goin' to see Inception AGAIN!" posts, and you'd think they'd be able to handle a political post once in a fucking blue moon!

and there I go I guess. all angry ...

M. K. Gandhi wrote:"I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power which can move the world."

When it comes to acknowledging unpleasant truths, I find that very often it is ignorance of these truths that causes anger. Usually the suggestion of an unpleasant truth to an ignorant person will cause them to get angry because they have not integrated the information into their consciousness. So these people are invited to acknowledge, for the first time in their lives, that they are livestock for financial oligarchs, and that makes them feel angry.

So when they talk to another person who has integrated and internalized this information, they automatically assume that this person must be extremely angry because that is how they would feel if they knew. And they don't want to know, because anger is not a pleasant feeling, so they project their anger on the person disturbing their bubble of dead thoughts.