Wednesday 9th November

Los Angeles was the city chosen by Brecht in his lyrics for Anna and her twin sister Anna to discover Wrath.  Wrath, a strange and rarely used word nowadays, except in “The Wrath of the Almighty” type of proclamations by the likes of Ian Paisley in Northern Ireland.  It means Anger, of course, but violent uncontrolled Anger at that, and of course it is perfectly obvious why it is a deadly sin.  It not only harms all around one, but most of all oneself.  What makes us Angry though, is it a gradual build up of events, like the cumulative water on a stone, and then we get to a tipping point of frustration, where the least little thing makes us erupt in volcanic anger?   Or is it the righteous indignation when we are wrongly accused?  Or is it, as so often is the case, when Love turns to Fury as our loved one lets us down, or rejects us, or simply does not reciprocate in the way we do?  So many things seem to make us Angry that one wonders if it is perhaps an essential part of our make-up, a defence-mechanism maybe for survival when times are tough.  Or is it just the result of stress from living such un-natural lives? After all, it is only in the last few thousand years that we have begun to live in settled communities with different skills and tasks and the added pressures of city living, with mass transport and the commercial imperative of making a living and being successful even more recent departures, is it little wonder that though we cope on the surface we are all prone to letting things push us into Anger.

I know that I was angry with Grandma for weeks after I discovered her little poisoned darts after her death, but maybe I was not so angry at her, but at myself for letting her get to me.  And maybe this is the key to Anger; we lash out at friends and family, or the unsuspecting girl in Starbucks who gets our order wrong, or the driver of the bus when it is suddenly decided to terminate here, when all along we are maybe angry with ourselves, and often angry because we realize we have just gotten angry over nothing and rather than back down we have to justify our anger by getting really furious and threatening to write to someone’s boss, or never coming here again.  Stupid really, but sometimes when one gets angry it is really quite hard to calm down and just forget it.

But what do you say about the really angry people, who leap out of their cars and assault another driver, or who beat someone up over an insult, or smash up their partner over a suspected infidelity, or who actually murder someone in a fit of jealous rage.  How angry do you have to be, to kill someone?  Better not try and find out, I think.  I do find that I have mellowed more with age; things that would have made me livid when a younger woman I let slip by me with a resigned shrug of the shoulders, more and more I realize I cannot change the world, so why get Angry at it. ‘Nothing really matters’, I find myself saying; it’s really quite easy, it’s called Apathy.  Why don’t you try it for a change?