the power of Rage…

I copied this from my post on newsvine…so I can keep track of myself!

There’s this massive volume of talk about the hardships that the different generations are having in this job market (market? hah – more like a swamp, filled with alligators). An avalanche of change, and a harvest for sociologists for decades to come. There are stories, rants, insults, reprimands and not fewer than millions of suggestions as to how to re-invent yourself, not let your despair infect your communication to potential employers, and use ‘marketing’ to position yourself.

Hooey! Don’t let my mild manner fool you. I want anyone who is coming in contact with me to feel FIRE! I want to burn hot! In my experience, true justifiable rage is an enormous source of power. It can fuel a revolution.

And that is what we have. A revolution. But the weapons we need are not guns, but juice, hutzpah, guts, honesty, intelligence, inspiration, compassion and creativity. The previous generation that managed to survive the Great Depression (depression is pathologically defined as “a low state of vitality”) were perhaps not yet collectively acquainted with the power of anger, and we collectively suffered the consequences of repressed rage for a whole generation. Which led us to first correct some injustices, when we marched on Washington and changed the world, then become the sops that let all this horror sneak up on us. Too polite, too conventional, too accepting of injustice and ethical corruption. Too damn fat.

Any decently experienced therapist can verify that one of the best anti-depressants is the release, the expression and the acceptance of rage…Of course, it is a wild horse, this rage…It takes a master to harness and use that energy for good…we already have too many loose cannons running around hurting people, and that is not what I am talking about. We also know that repressed rage can be turned on oneself, as seen in many recent events in the news.

I’m talking about the kind of rage that brings us adrenalin that we can tap when a train is coming, and a little old lady finds the strength to push a baby carriage off the tracks…I’m talking about the kind of rage that keeps the fires of hope alive when an innocent man is unjustly put in jail. I’m talking about the kind of rage I have felt for years, watching the american dream being raped by government & corporate pirates, and the rage I feel for the innocents of the world that have always and still suffer silently, victims of all forms of abuse, locally and globally.

I feel the rage that comes from embarrassment, over the lapse in my own attention to those who had less than I. Not that I lack or lacked empathy, but I was busy feeding my family, and paying my rent, and doing my best at a job I loved, for a company that was busy giving away that very job to a less-expensive, less-experienced, less commited worker, and giving bonuses to the execs that reduced operating costs by doing so.

So I feel the rage of conflict, fear and frustration, internal, and unresolved. I feel the rage of the people, and I am not afraid. For this rage is justified, it has a masterful hand in our current leader, and it has all the marks of a revolution that will no doubt bring us to a new era…despite the attempts of marketers to infect us with their methods.

Any marketers out there with a job for me? I promise to not let my anger twist my powerpoint.