What Do We Do With the Rage?
Prospects of a Covid relief passage are zero, but Republicans rammed through their Supreme Court appointee and left town. The senators who voted NOT to confirm Amy Coney Barrett represent 13.5 million more people than the senators who voted to confirm her. Her approval comes one week before an election in which 60 million people have already voted. Minority rule. It’s hard not to feel angry.
Most of us knew a trump presidency was a terrible idea, but it has been even worse than we expected, and we have endured four years of corruption and abuse, and it’s exhausting and disillusioning. Democrats will have to be relentless in undoing the damage Republicans have done to our democracy—for generations to come.
And now, less than a week away from an election that will determine if our country still has a soul, it’s hard to focus on anything else. Last night, to increase my chances of getting some sleep, I chose to read a book rather than doom-scrolling, and I picked up Gratitude, four final essays by the late Oliver Sacks, written in the aftermath of his terminal cancer diagnosis. It turned out to be oddly comforting. His words are gentle, tender, and wise:
“I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and an adventure.”
I’m thinking about love and gratitude right now. I am someone who has been lavishly loved, often undeservedly, and despite many missteps and detours, here I am, in a place of enchantment. I used to have a recurring dream about being unable to find my way home, about not having a home, about belonging nowhere. Now I walk on ground that has become familiar to me, savor the mottled gold light through the branches of trees I know well, look out beyond an orchard to the blurred edge of the land. I am a visitor, always, as are we all, but I perceive this world as wondrous, not alien. As John O’Donohue expressed it: “It’s strange to be here. The mystery never leaves you alone.”
I walk with friends amidst the mysteries, and we try to talk things through. My anger and anxiety feel dissonant here. Annie, having recently listened to a podcast with Roshi Joan Halifax, suggests that the key is equanimity. Equanimity means having stability of mind, a sturdy sense of balance, the steadiness that allows us to remain present with an open heart no matter how challenging the conditions are. It cannot be achieved without first letting go. It’s about being in touch with feelings without being overcome and swept away by those feelings.
I don’t know how to attain equanimity, and I’m probably a long way from it, but I am quite sure my fury puts me off balance, and it isn’t helping anyone. Is there a way to channel the rage? Is it possible and necessary to forgive all the selfishness and stupidity? In one text, equanimity is described as ruthless compassion, which sounds like it would require more steel and stamina than I possess. But these words of Roshi Joan do resonate: “Our daily lives are the vehicles for awakening, for freeing ourselves and others from suffering.”
When viewed that way, each day is an opportunity. I guess I can start with the awakening part, with noticing, appreciating, being present. It always comes down to that. Maybe we are a week away from a great affirmation of our highest ideals, a turn towards decency and reason. Or maybe we are a week away from a terrifying drop into deeper darkness. For now, I think I have done whatever small tangible things I can do, and it’s time to inhabit the day.
Indeed, as dear Oliver Sacks put it, having been a thinking animal on this beautiful planet is an enormous privilege and adventure, and on the scale of my emotions and values, gratitude far exceeds rage. I’m going to try to tune out the predictions and empty noise for now. I’m going outside––but inside too, to the universe that lives within.
“In order to keep our balance,” wrote O’Donohue, “we need to hold the interior and exterior, visible and invisible, known and unknown, temporal and eternal, ancient and new together.”
That certainly sounds like equanimity. Equanimity as a super-power.
Oh, who am I kidding? We’re in a scary passage, and some of these highfalutin ideas are pretty hard to implement. But if Oliver Sacks, just weeks before his death, could write–I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight–well, I think I can aspire to do likewise. No anger involved, and we’re going to need all the understanding and insight we can muster.