anger is a funny thing because i find myself regarding it with more affection than i used to. it’s powerful and that power, undirected and diffuse, can get harmful. it’s just like fire or electricity. a forest fire or a lightning strike aren’t good. but it’s the same stuff that can power your electronics – and the very same type of electrons i am inconveniencing to write this message – or be a cozy fire in a hearth or be a roaring fire that powers a steam engine locomotive.
other people have talked about putting this anger to good use. god only knows we’ve got a lot of opportunities today to turn that “i am angry!” into “i am going to use my anger to help support the good fight”.
but i would also recommend just… occasionally trying some very frivolous way to expend it. and specifically something very tactile, or even full-body, to make it feel as most unlike sitting at your computer chair being frustrated as possible.
so if you’ve ever been interested in that kickboxing class? now’s a great time to explore that. you don’t need to start taping printouts of people’s portraits to your punching bag, or even necessarily attach any narrative of who you’re punching at all. (though if you want to and it works, go for it!) think of it more like a physical sensation you’re working out. dogs get the zoomies, humans can get the punchies.
creating something to destroy is also useful. or just creating something in a way that is tactile and you get to be a little bit violent at. so that lace making class? …not for right now. but a pottery class? oh yeah. sling some clay. punch that clay. toss that clay clear across the room! yes, knowing that you just failed throwing that pot doesn’t feel great but as it collapses you just get to mush it up again real good. it is a medium that thrives on being a little bit barbaric to it. (well, at that stage when it’s all wet, anyway. then it becomes significantly more high maintenance. but you also get to say bad and naughty pots get punished in the super hot room that is the kiln, so ha ha ha get baked idiots)
heck, there’s zero shame in pulling out some oven-bake clay about it, too. or if you want to smash and then rage eat, there’s edible playdough – smooth peanut butter, add powdered milk until right consistency, sweeten with a touch of honey, then build little homunculi of your aggravations with pretzel limbs and raisin eyes and Then Just Eat Them.
or if you want to combine food you can eat with “i need to just obliterate some semisolid goo”… baking! a lot of rage can go into bread dough that requires extensive kneading for well developed gluten. it’s called the punch down stage for a reason! then at the end you get bread to eat, which is a bonus.
and as much as i did just say to explore things that feel physically different to do…
…you like video games?
sometimes a video game is a nice focus for rage because you get to do something with it. DOOM is a classic for a reason. (and it’s even been converted to pdf!) (this is not a joke, somebody really did that) you also have cooperative video games where you can work together to slay that dragon, and if the business world isn’t scratching that itch of “we have the agency to come together and do something collectively to triumph”, then why not look for it elsewhere? for this i would heavily advise not looking at any game that’s free to play with microtransactions – many of them are predatory and are meant to frustrate you into spending money, because the games aren’t designed to be fun, they’re designed to bully you into hopefully becoming one of the “whales” who spend thousands (usually due to gambling addiction). the short list of games that i trust while being free-to-play is… short… it’s basically just one, so i’ll skip the entire category and recommend you go look at games where you purchase the game and then you’re done lol. if anything shows up with a lootbox, throw it out the window, basically.
fortunately there’s a whole world of very different games out there. part of the power fantasy of the hero is that you get to be the person who can do stuff! you save the world, you kill the dragon, whatever! you do the thing! so if what appeals is losing yourself in a narrative where you get to be the hero that does stuff, try the Mass Effect series, or Fallout New Vegas if you want post-apoc more than sci-fi, or Skyrim if you want straight fantasy. and that’s just me looking at one very specific genre. there’s the Monkey Island series of point-and-click adventure games if you want some piratical absurdity, and a new Civilization game has just come out if you want to conquer the world… and it requires more than a PC, but the newer Pokemon games on the Switch are lovely. if nothing of the above appeals and you’d rather be given a puzzle to keep your brain chewing on instead of anger? there’s many variations of the classic Tetris, but also the current indie darling of Balatro. and let me tell you: i have rarely seen my friends go from “it’s not quite my interest but i’ll give it a whirl” to “I now live, sleep, and breathe Balatro.” quite as intensely as any other game LOL. you like Peggle and want a new twist on it? try Peglin, where you are a cute little goblin travelling around and to fight monsters you… play peggle about it. and if you’re tired of the vibes being bad, if you want a game to be a chill moment of zen? there are many games for that, too. Stardew Valley is a charming game that also likes to kick out all of the bad thoughts from your head because it demands that brain space instead. (i have literally used it as a substitute for additional pain relief after a surgery when there was a mixup of me actually needing more pain medication on account of being operated on.) the newest Animal Crossing was a phenomenon in the pandemic for a reason, too! if you want to be somewhere other people are, there are also massively multiplayer versions of many of these vibes, too. for instance, Palia is one that comes with the free-to-play grating miasma, but they don’t do lootbox nonsense and all of the buyables are cosmetic instead of impacting gameplay. (so i guess that makes actually two free-to-play games i can recommend in good conscience, the other being Warframe. which is a fantastic time but may be a little impenetrable if you don’t already play video games.)
hey, there’s no law that says you can’t sit at work and instead of stewing in rage at the injustice of it all, think about the really good video game you’re going to play when you get home. or the new pottery technique that’s coming up in this week’s class. or how you’re going to make some pizza dough with such well developed gluten that you’re going to thwack it against the countertop as part of kneading it. they don’t own your thoughts you use to cool down between tasks, after all. boss hires his frat bros while i’m here full-time, that’s why i’m thinking about video games on company time? okay, okay, that doesn’t work nearly as well, but you get the idea lol.
two last practical ideas which are much less involved:
it feels really tempting – to me, at least – to beat myself up for being angry. then i have to go ruminate on if i was correct being angry or not. and if i wasn’t then i have to be angry at myself for being angry and if i was then i’m just thinking about all the ways i am justifiably mad. it sucks! so, redirection is a big thing i do to keep myself from that spiral. if you catch yourself doing the same thing, don’t beat yourself up about it too hard. just look for ways to take an exit off this spiral highway.
if you have something physically bothering you that might be making all of this worse, it’s well worth investing in that! sometimes it’s hard to figure out how much of a mental burden those pair of too-tight shoes were until you get home, kick them off, and realize that actually, yeah, that low level grumbling from your feet was making your mood trend to grumbling too. they aren’t responsible for it all, but it sure is easier to be calm when you’re not experiencing death by a thousand paper cuts of little physical annoyances. so wear the comfy shoes, toss on the nice cardigan if the office is too cold, go ahead and use the fan, keep the nice chapstick and hand cream in your bag to use, you get the idea. (yeah, the hand cream and chapstick thing is very much from personal experience. i am also a rickety jenga tower of neurodivergencies and chronic conditions, but i feel like those are two feelings that don’t feel great and can be very easily pushed to one side because you’ve got other things to do. without that little nagging annoyance, it’s easier to focus on everything else!) look for ways to be nice to yourself, and let that include how to be nice to your physical body too. and as a bonus, taking a thirty second stretch break at your computer is a way to sort of reset your thoughts if the anger is wanting to make you turn into Godzilla because of the absolute state of things.
hang in there. this won’t be forever. be kind to yourself as you can.
