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Anger's
Gift
by
Sam Keen
 Sometimes
what looks like a fight is only the fierceness of love.
At the moment, the honest struggle going on between men
and women is less comfortable but more loving than the
old false peace. We have moved from a condition of
silent hostility, buried resentment, and covert
low-intensity warfare to open conflict. So, the first
thing we need to do is acknowledge the strong, strange
interchange that is taking place between us. We are
wrestling together, changing roles in the hay, engaging
in honest intercourse, yessing and k(no)wing each other.
And contact is the first condition of love.
Don't
mess with us if you are looking for somebody
who will
always be "nice" to you.
("Nice" gets you a C+ in life.)
Perhaps
there is nothing more important for men to learn in
their relationships with women than the difference
between fierceness and violence. Fierceness is an
expression of inner strength; violence is an expression
of frustrated, unconscious impotence.
Equality
between men and women means that what is true for the
goose is true for the gander. In liberating themselves,
women undammed ancient rivers of anger and pain that
swept away much that lay in the path of the flood the
unjust and the just. As men liberate themselves, they
must also expect the swamp of hostility to erupt into a
deluge of uncomfortable emotion that will certainly
include torrents of rage and sorrow.
For men
and women to love each other, we must learn to respect
each other's anger. Presently, like porcupines trying to
make love, we circle and try to avoid the barbs. We are
so terrified of the residue of accumulated anger that
has been generated by the battle between the sexes that
we settle for superficial contact rather than risk
expressing our deepest "negative" feelings and
start a new round of warfare.
When we
do not express our anger, we simmer in silent hostility
and make ineffective love and war at the same time. We
hone our defenses against each other at the same time we
talk about peace. Not a very wholehearted or hopeful way
to live!
Men (and
women) should be forewarned that, in the process of
sorting out our experience, we will provoke anger --
both righteous and unrighteous. There is no reason to
assume that as we begin to speak our bitterness it will
be automatically wise, or that our anger will be
appropriately directed. Some of the discoveries men make
as they explore their intimate experience of manhood
will be pleasing to women, others will not. As a rule,
women cheer us when we become more sensitive to the
nuances of feeling, when we surrender our compulsion to
control.
As we
move tentatively toward reconciliation, it is helpful to
remember that anger is a necessary part of the dance of
love. Think of clean anger as the voice of the wise
serpent on the early American flag who says, "Don't
tread on me." Without anger we have no fire, no
thunder and lightning to defend the sanctuary of the
self. No anger = no boundaries = no passion.
Good men
and good women have fire in the belly. We are fierce.
Don't mess with us if you are looking for somebody who
will always be "nice" to you.
("Nice" gets you a C+ in life.) We don't
always smile, talk in a soft voice, or engage in
indiscriminate hugs. In the loving struggle between the
sexes we thrust and parry.
Honor
your anger. But before you express it, sort out the
righteous from the unrighteous. Immediately after a
storm, the water is muddy; rage is indiscriminate. It
takes time to discriminate, for the mud to settle. But
once the stream runs clear, express your outrage against
any who have violated your being. Give the person you
intend to love the gift of discriminating anger.
 Recommended
book:
Fire in the Belly
by Sam Keen.
Info/Order
this book
About The
Author
The
above was excerpted with permission (article published in the print
edition of InnerSelf Magazine, June 1992) from Fire
in the Belly by Sam Keen. This book was listed as one of the 10
best-sellers in the U.S. Published by Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue,
New York, 10103. Sam Keen holds an MA. from the Harvard Divinity School
and a doctorate from Princeton University. Mr. Keen's latest book is Learning
to Fly:
Trapeze--Reflections on Fear, Trust, and the Joy of Letting Go.
Visit his website at
http://www.samkeen.com
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