Rage

After making an error, it is so easy to cling to the emotional comfort state of
what was, but there is also that unsettling sense that things have changed for the
worse. The clear thinker is suddenly at war with himself, and flow is lost. - Josh
Waitzkin, “The Art Of Learning”




Rage. We gotz it.





"How are you tonight?"

I know full well that this is part of the "social dance steps" that we are all required to perform in order to get along in polite society. I know that the expectation is to respond pleasantly, "Fine, thank you." Even if the real answer is "Homicidal- do ya want some, you *%^$#& &%$^#^& @#$%98ing %#!@~?" or some variant thereof.

Even in my most mellow moods/times, I have always been perplexed by this one. Why do we ask this? Of random strangers? You are ringing up my Safeway purchases, you don't know me from Winnie Mandela, I am one of an endless string of anonymous customers that you are required to be polite to in order to earn the minimum wage that's barely going to buy your own groceries. Do you REALLY want to hear how I am tonight? **REALLY**?!?? Even if you do, are we gonna hold up the other five people in line behind me while I tell you all about it? And WTF good do you think it would do?

When I was a teenager, I routinely responded to this ubiquitous inane question with "Could be worse." Believe it or not, that response- which ought to be a red flag that this person is antisocial and in a pissy mood- causes people to try to engage you *MORE*. They want to find out more. They want to banter with you. They want to show you that they care. They want to fix you. In the forty-eight seconds before they need to start ringing up the guy behind you.

Grinding that "fine" out in these last two months just makes me want to rip someone's head off and fingerpaint the walls with blood.




Marci, the most junior student in SK's class, e-mailed me to ask what happened to
me. It was so thoughtful and sweet. And depressing.





Friday's FOD: Snake Versus Five Animals.
Saturday FOD: Leopard 3

Sunday FOD: Catherine Dao. Also did a few reps of that Green Dragon fragment, and

the new bit of JoE's Southern Mantis.

Monday FOD: Tai Chi long form.
Tuesday FOD: Black Crane One.

Thursday FOD: The Spear Hand fragment.

This was last week's FOD listing. It is now almost a week later and I am still on Spear Hand. This week did not exist.



I realize that part of my issue is that there is a lot of scheduling chaos and various unusual sources of stress at work- which would be rocky to cope with at the best of times.

The bigger part of my issue is that a huge- and arguably unhealthy- amount of my life (social, scheduling-wise, physical, mental, spiritual, both short- and long-term goals) was structured on and around my kung fu training. Now, with the structure removed, the entirety of my life is closely resembling those vids of the twin towers collapsing.

This is a bona fide pathological addiction. It's probably healthier in the long run that there doesn't seem to be any chance of getting it back, but the detox is hell. I'm not sure I can survive the detox.

For the first few weeks after I quit going to Kung Fu class, I was training a lot on my own time (mostly with Mirror forms). For a while, I think I was getting more
constructive work done than I had been getting done in class. The longer it goes-
and thus the more it looks like I'll never be going back- my will is sapping. Lately, just the thought of working forms makes me feel a little nauseous. I haven't even been able to bring myself to do the FOD for a week.

BJJ is not much better. I have absolutely no desire to go to class.

I feel so filled up with rage these past few weeks. I feel like I can relate to those people who shoot somebody dead for cutting them off in traffic. Seriously- if both restrooms are occupied, if my freeway exit is closed for road work, if I didn't get time to swing by the ATM- I just want to rip someone's head off and fingerpaint the walls with blood.

I've always had a lot of rage in me- but this is rage on steroids.

I'm not concerned that I'm actually going to go postal on someone for real.... but I can't stop myself from being short, curt, brusque, even sometimes borderline rude with everyone around me. I feel crappy for it, but at the same time I'm inwardly congratulating myself- "At least I didn't rip her head off and fingerpaint the walls with her blood! Yay me!"

I was trying to self-analyze today why I just don't feel like going to BJJ... and got a bit of a lightbulb flash on the fact that without my normal life structure- and the EQUILIBRIUM that structure offers- I just feel too unbalanced to roll with the normal bumps in everyday life. Normally, if some spazzy guy armbars me too hard, I might get ticked off or frustrated. Now, the same situation makes me want to rip someone's head off and fingerpaint the walls with blood. (I'm enjoying typing that phrase...quite...a lot......) Then in a split second, that scarlet killing fury frequently shifts to a black sucking vortex of despair ("I want to hang myself with my BJJ belt"). The fact that I can't seem to leave it on the mat is a factor as well. When I'm thinking of going to class, it's like, "Do I feel like engaging that depth of rage/despair and spending the rest of today (not to mention the sleepless night) marinating in it? Or would it be safer and less painful to just sit here and stare at the cracks in the floor for the next five straight hours?"


So.... addiction DT's to be waited out. Rage to be channeled into something, somehow, less destructive than ripping heads off and fingerpainting the walls with blood. Scheduling structure to be rebuilt. Equilibrium.... I'm at a loss right now as to what to do to start trying to get that back.