(not my own photo)
I remember many years ago seeing a bumper-sticker and it really resonated with me. In our world, there are numerous things to be outraged about..and the more you look, ie. pay attention, the more outrageous things you will see.. and this will start to extend into things that are currently accepted as legal and normal…
I think the bumper sticker needs another verse however:
If you’re outraged, you’re not paying attention!
This brings it back home, back inside. … When we view our world, we may get full of rage, outrage… and feel more than justified… for example, feeling rage when learning about 53 people being murdered in a nightclub. No matter how justified we may feel with this emotion of hatred and rage, we should look at the origin of this feeling. (The origin is the shooting, idiot!) Anger and rage are natural.. why did we evolve these feelings? To help our survival… to put us in a fight-or-fight response. However, when we see these images on our computers, thousands of miles away perhaps, the flight-or-fight response becomes unnecessary…. we are too far away to help protect the people and too far away about trying to get away from the danger. Sure, you may say that rage fuels our fight response, which we can take to stopping others before they get the chance to do the same in the future. But this type of ‘fighting’ would require a strategy, and therefore the immediate ‘fighting’ could not be achieved (ie. the rage we may feel can not be acted up in a constructive way).
So, bringing it back inside ourselves… if we pay close attention, we do not need to be filled with rage, it will not help anyone. Sure, when we first learn of horrific events, we may feel anger and rage.. that is natural… but it is not natural to hold onto this anger… in nature, we evolved to have an immediate response to this anger…
When we look inside ourselves, we may see that running or fighting/protecting isn’t a valid choice given our position. So what shall we do? Let it fall away and see what remains… Once the anger and rage are released, we may begin to see things more clearly and have a better idea of what could be done.
oxherderzen 
Very true. Rage is never really helpful, is it? When we act from a place of love and courage, though, real change is possible.
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I want to agree, but I don’t know if rage can never be helpful. I think it has its natural place.. in extreme threatening momentary situations. I think, for example, if I saw someone harming my child, I would feel anger and rage build up in me… and I think that could very useful in protecting my child at that moment. But the function of rage must be seen clearly and we must balance it with reason to ensure we act appropriately. That said, I agree with you that real change for the world comes from love and courage, not hate/rage/anger. Many thanks for commenting and reading. 🙂
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