In one of his columns on his site, Warren Ellis wonders when, exactly, he became one of the leading lights of the rebels in the comic industry. He points out that at 34 (at the time of writing, so a while back), with a wife, a child, a house and a strawberry garden, he is not a rebel, but rather is the establishment. Then he wonders why, exactly, he can't find a real rebel (whom he describes as a 23 year old woman with a needle in her arm and an evil glint in her eye, if I recall correctly) to turn his job over to.

Lack of anger, I'd say.

We grow up constrained by many factors - one of which is the way our schools are structured, as I've already ranted, some time ago. Another, however, is the evident belief that we should all be tranquil and happy in our lives.

My personal opinion, after having been tranquil and happy for the last month and a half (and not coincidentally, barely able to get out of bed in the morning) is that this is a crock of horseshit. I need to be angry to get anything done. And this is due to an interesting quirk of psychology: if there is something or someone that I am angry at, accomplishing anything is a direct blow to them.

Apparently I am not the only one who feels this way; this is what surprises me most. See, I've always sort of thought that my anger was extreme and inappropriate - that if I didn't try very hard, it would control me in an unpleasant, Darth Vader Meets Lord Voldemort sort of way. That if I lost control of my anger, Very Bad Things Indeed would happen.

And yet I find that other people need to be angry to accomplish anything.

Which leads me to the question of why we are trying to achieve peace and tranquility. I do recognize that in a number of belief systems, peace and tranquility are the be-all and end-all of desired existence. However, in the West, this is not the case for a majority of people. Ergo, anger is an acceptable emotion. And yet, we try to shove it away, to pretend that it doesn't exist.

Bear with me for a slight digression.

Anger is a beautiful thing. It is one of the very pure emotions, or can be: that teeth-clenching anger, that sense of righteous fire that you can develop when you are told that something you want is not possible. I don't rank it as highly as hate or love in my pantheon of emotions, but it's certainly up there with Lust - and ironically enough, I don't put Happiness into that category at all, because I find that happiness is fleeting in a way that lust and anger are not.

End of digression. Fuck off if you've a problem with it.

So, logically, we should encourage anger. Not the hit-someone-with-a-blunt-instrument sort, but the directed and driven sort. And yet we don't.

This comes down to, ultimately, the fact that what we want in life is sheep. We want conformists. We want non-achievers. We want people who are satisfied with the bog-standard crap served by McDonalds and AOL and Warner Brothers and Danielle Steel and the Gap and generally speaking, life as we know it. We want people who don't want to go beyond their unnaturally imposed limits.

I'm not making an argument for some sort of Aryan super-race of overachievers, all running around in meetings and networking and etc. Instead, I'm saying, rather than abandoning your emotions, cherish them. Don't let anyone else tell you what to feel - what you feel is valid. And for god's sake: in a society that's actively trying to control how you think and feel (fluoridated water and its attendant brain damage anyone?), this is a far more precious thing than it should be.

Unless, of course, you're a raving sociopath such as myself. However, that's not going to stop me from going in search of something to be angry about, quite simply because it is likely to be the only way that I will get anything done in life.

When I took Physics in high school, my teacher was talking about the fallacy of critical mass in nuclear reactions. Most movies use "critical mass" as a statement equivalent to "Holy shit, I didn't know that was what China looks like!" However, in real life, "critical mass" is what you need to start the reaction. Super-critical mass is the problem.

The parallel is probably obvious, but here you go: if we're all taught to think that anger is equivalent to critical mass (in the China Syndrome sense) rather than in the super-critical mass sense, of course it is not valuable. It's essentially useless! It's the intellectual (or emotional) equivalent of nipples on men, for chrissake! However, if anger (or some other strong, negative emotion) is what it takes to make you get off your lazy ass and do something, then I say fuck you, stick with your original definition.

Makes it easier for me to take over the world if no one is protesting. However, I am going to be actively searching for things to be angry about, at least until I get tired and burnout in my 9-5 life.

It's just something to think about.

Taking my revenge on you,

Channon