Impotent Rage

The Problem:

Have you ever felt as if you are drowning under the a wealth of raw uncontrollable emotions?

Eva Hoffman Quote: “Anger can be borne – it can even be satisfying ...

When you try to catch a breath, you draw empty? Somehow all the air has been sucked out of your world and the only thing you have left, is deep and shameful inadequacies.

Have you ever felt as if you have been encased in a layer of thin ice? You see all who walk over you, leaving their imprint but they never see you. You call to them but that thin layer of ice is just too thick for you to be heard, too thick to break through.

There are moments where without the bars, you still feel like a prisoner, without the chains, you have become a modern day slave. You shake so badly that your teeth seem as if they are having a good old time in your mouth and just below the surface the lava is licking your insides, causing steam to shoot out from the very depths of you. Confusion assail you and you don’t know what to do. Where is the solution, how can you stop the fire from burning you down, to dust. Do you feel as if in that moment nothing matters except that burning red haze that blinds your vision?

Your voice gets louder, your temperature rises, but no one can hear you, because no one listens to you. You plot, plan and construct all the ways you can rid yourself of this deadly haze, to see clear blue skies instead of boiling hot monsters, huffing and puffing to blow everything down!

Is there nothing that can be done. no cure for what ails you at those moments? Are you doomed forever to suffer in your sense of impotent rage?

It only takes one match to light a spark or to burn down a forest. It only takes one careless act to destroy another person’s life. Just one moment when you forget what it requires to be a human being and to see beyond your own needs. If you cannot see beyond your own problems then the hurt you inflict on another to solve that problem, could be the feather that breaks the camel’s back.

When the back is broken there is a wailing of anger that you try to cover with words of kindness, smiles and fake humility. You sit in your corner and are fed upon by fear. Fear becomes your constant thorny bed upon which you lie and bleed slowly, continuously.

The Cure:

The only cure is to shed false virtues of loyalty to the thing that brings the fear. Renounce and find your voice to speak out, no matter what may come. Take the time to discover if this anger is just or not, and what you want to do about it. Or, may you need to exit stage left to find that you are happier without the blinding lights of a bad situation. Make an escape plan and work until you get it right, then go far, far away and never come back.

That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
    which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
    whatever they do prospers.
(
Psalm 1:3 )

Or you can find peace in the only place you can; in the presence of The Almighty.

When Self-Help Becomes Trendy.

It is fascinating and quite horrifying to realise that things are not always what they appear to be. It is also embarrassing that you have been doped by by your own imagination and not facts. I use to think that self help books were the answer to solving many of my problems. But I guess by now you know, where I am headed. They did not work.

First of all, I was under the misconception that once I started reading them, I would be so motivated that things would somehow click into place. I would develop a better mindset and start feeling great about life! Never happened. Why, you may ask? No amount of advice or reading is going to take you to where you want to be. If all you do is sit around and think of all the things you want to accomplish and read a million and one books about how to do the same thing, then you’ll be dreaming forever.

Essentially at some point in all this reading, you have to take action. In all these challenges of writing all the things you want to do or accomplish, you have to get up and do.

Also, I realise now that some of those advice had nothing to do with my reality and so were not applicable to me. I was looking externally at a solution that never matched my problem. I got so caught up in the thought of making a change that I kept tripping up myself.

Wow! I made a vision board or I wrote down some goals, let me take a nap, that was hard work after all.

Then, next years comes around and the plan is still there. Well at least I had a plan, but this is no comfort at all. You have a plan that was based on someone else’s because it seemed like a good idea, not because it really was a solution to your problems. So in the end I continued on my quest to find the next book or video that would be the one and the only thing I ended up with is a collection that I need a home library for. By the way, I love books, just not those that remind me that I have failed at yet another attempt at succeeding!

I know what to do and I know how to go about getting it done, but strangely I was hoping if I stalled long enough there would be a miracle that would take the decision out of my hand, and that is the escape that those self-help books offered, an escape from making the tough, unpleasant and unpopular decisions.

Then, there is the fallout when you realise that you have not made the kinds of gains you thought you would, when the example of what success is is not in your reality. Then you realise that the after images fed to you by these books and videos never really guaranteed it would be the same for you. I realise now that I was more invested in someone else’s reality and not my own. Maybe the author or that personality made it, became a success but did I stop to think if that was for me or if I even wanted their success. After all, a certain concept of success has been ingrained in many persons that have no bearing on their passions or personalities. Being a certain kind of success had me running to get it from a book, from a video and from images readily available.

So what is left when all else fails? Where to turn when success cannot be found in the self-help trend? Well, because of this pandemic I have had to deal with health challenges that have made me a bit paranoid and the struggle to practice mental wellness a daily event. It has forced me to look within and to realise that I can only be happy if I am brutally honest with myself about what I have not gotten right and work in incremental stages (baby steps ) to improve. It also means accepting that there are dreams that were never mine to dream and therefore finding pursuits that really matter. My success is knowing that I take care of my physical and mental health, that I recognise that everything that happens to me after this is within my control. It is in knowing that no person can tell me what my future will be, because God has placed me squarely in the driver’s seat and He is my instructor.

Useless Rage

Imagine being so angry about something that you feel you are about to burst a blood vessel. Now imagine talking about whatever is making you upset until you are blue and black in the face. Now imagine doing this for the rest of your life. I know, it is exhausting! Not to mention unproductive! There you are cussing and complaining up and down left and right, making all kinds of crazy gesticulations and nothing happens. How frustrating, how annoying. However, maybe we need to stop with the cussing and complaining long enough to think about what all of that has accomplished.

Mason Cooley Quote: “Rage is exciting, but leaves me confused and ...

Usually nothing is accomplished.

When we fail to act, nothing changes. Yes, some may argue that making noise is doing something. However, I believe that action is more productive than mere words. Many quote from the scripture this popular idea, “faith without works is dead”, focusing on the idea that all you have to do is have faith and everything will change, but that’s because they have not read what comes before:

14 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? 17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (James 2:14-17)

I am tired of persons complaining about injustices, profiting from their complaints but not actually being the change. But it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge that I also do it. I also complain and cuss how unfair life can be at times and continue to traverse the same places from which this unfairness resides. However, when you see someone doing the same thing that you do then you realise how both self-sabotaging it can be or self-serving. Some people claim to be activists but all they are are bandwagonist, who will hop on a cause if it does something for their image. If they are called on to make some kind of sacrifice in the name of that cause, they suddenly realise they have so much to do that will be stunted by being more involved. It is easy to have a running commentary on any number of issues but when the jokes and the talking has been exhausted, then what? For too many, it is to pack up and head home, until another such occasion comes around to talk some more. Far too many of us have become good talkers and not good doers.

There are so many persons who get fired up to the one hundredth degree about things that, yes we need to be angry about, but what next? How do you turn that rage into something productive? How does it become an agent for change in the lives of those who are the most affected, the most vulnerable. Now it is easy for anyone to stay in the comfort of their homes and either watch commentary on the injustices of the world or make said commentary, but, how many of those persons will actually do something to start and be the change that the world needs? How many are willing to have real faith and stand against the many that stand a part from the few?

Rage is useless if it goes nowhere and does nothing.

The One Sitting on the Throne

Power can be very deceptive. This coming from someone who has never had much and who does not desire much, beyond a measure of control over my own destiny and how my story unfold and is told.

However, I have observed that any measure of privilege and lead one to be consumed with a sense of self importance. As I hear an old woman tell her young caregiver to look wood to roast breadfruit, instead of using the coal she bought, I see the evidence clearly. Her position as employer and her caregiver as employee, has given her the right, in her mind, to see her as less than. The man who has the handle is seemingly in a better position than the man who holds the blade. Therefore, the one at the lower end must be careful not to antagonise the other or else his very life may be short lived.

Jamaica Culinary Tours :: Home
Jamaican wood fire…

Imagine the one who has the power to determine, who eats and goes hungry. Who lives and who dies. What great power that persons has! And yet his or her power is never complete, it is always finite.

For all the millions, billions and even trillions, one thing the rich cannot buy is more time. At some point the fabulously rich, those who have some measure of wealth must face their own mortality. They will get sick, some will make it to old age, but, all will eventually die. When we think of all those great kingdoms around the world, the one thing they all have in common, is that at some point they only remain great in the memories of those who chose to remember and tell their story.

the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever.They lay their crowns before the throne…” – Revelation 4:10

Even if you have a throne that you sit on here on earth, one day you will have to give it up. You will have to throw in the towel, give up the crown. If the natural order of life does not lead to this inevitability then someone else will come to claim or take it. Quickly the ones jostling at the top on their tippy toe point realise, maybe too late, that they were never meant to remain there forever, but only for a while. Because we all came and saw the world it is reasonable to assume that nothing here really belongs to us. The crown we wear, if we do, will have to be laid down as we acknowledge that any power we have is limited. If the elders around the throne of The Most High were compelled to lay down their crown in acknowledging a greater power than their own, what does that say about each of us!

For some it may be very hard to consider those who he looks down on from his lofty spot. He may shake his head in pity and the poor misbegotten souls. Never thinking that they can very topple from that envied spot. Some never consider that they are are very short distance away from where they started or sinking even lower. The horror at the indignity of once again being ordinary is a fate worse than death for many. However, it is a fate that we all begin with and all must end with.

Some will say that this pandemic has been the great equalizer, but it has also revealed that many cling to their throne to the detriment of many,and many cling to a crown of Pyrite.

cross on the top of the mountain sunset sunsetsky awesomeshots ...

Day and Night

A dash of dreams...
A tupse of twenty-twenty vision.

let's turn the page!
Do things
important things.

But the latch felt and we were
trapped.
whispers everywhere
whispers to ripples
ripples to waves
waves become liquid mountain
crashing down.

We ran into secret places
invisible
unknown.
All dreams, attacked, 
grasping desperately for air.

It wasn't fair,
it didn't care, 
man woman and child
all had a fair share.

We raged, we cried, we begged - 
Mercy!
It did not hear, Misery kept us company.

The carnival had ended and so masks were removed.
Many Medusas were unveiled that day,
No Oracles to spin fantasies.
Helpless to the onslaught we cowered in dark places.

Out of despair many turned to Him.
Will He hear their cry?
Will He care?
Will He...? 

Mad Thinking

You know what I tink?
eh?
you want to hear what I have to say?
I think you in trouble.
everyday I see you pass
you busy, 
go here
go there
but you nuh reach nowhere.
I think I do more 
in a one hour 
than you do in a year!
everyday you dress up nice nice,
but everyday
the frown line dem inna your face multiply and get deeper.
you catch a little cold
and you start to worry and fret.
You not strong enough,
your mind and body weak.
Look at me!
I eat any and every thing,
go everywhere and do everything and never sick a day.

So you think you free.
Alright,
When last you do what you really want to do?
When last you say what is on your mind?
you free?
So how comes you cannot live without so many things you going to dead leave.
You see I wake up any hours and a so my day start.
I don't owe no one nothing.
I answer to no man
woman
or child.
But even when you get old
you still a go tie up.
you still a go try to be free.

bwoy,
 it look like you might have to be mad,
 to really make it in this life.

A Story that Needs Telling

I don’t want to do anything in desperation. I had done too many things out of desperation. For every single one of those hastily made decision, I had lived to regret them so deeply.

“Why yuh a sidung by yuself like poor ting?”

I didn’t want to answer. This would mean I am alive. Who wants to live when death is surely better? Or is it? I try to catch a little breeze. Prayed for the gentle tickles, for the mischievous ripples that would play along my bare skin. But there was only the comfort of heat, making me sticky and itchy all over. Not a single spot was overlooked. There was only the rapid tattoo of my heart and the shallow rush, in and out of each breath I took. A painful reminder that I have to get up, in spite of it all, and go on with this business of living. Yes I had to get up, even if I had to go back a bit to do so.

“Bwoy, you never learn, going ina circle always end up a di same place.”

Was that me or one of my granny’s endless lectures making an unwelcome appearance. I decided to lie back and follow that voice, wherever it led.

“Pickney, stop go ’round mi skirt, stay still!”

My world was not right. Something was wrong with this memory. I was seeing everything through lenses, topsy turvy. Obviously the cameraman was a novice.

“eediot, caah even focus on the scene.”

In a moment it shifted. There she is running in her nighty.

“Lawd have mercy pickney, go home!”