The other day my buddy @RTSlaywood ask on twitter for people to use a word to describe their soul. I said "sad". There's a lot of reasons for that which I'm not going to talk about today but honestly the answer surprised me. Not because I'm not sad and haven't known for the better part of two years that sadness has been the overriding factor of my life, but I hadn't really thought about it or processed this change. Because if you had previously asked me about the state of my soul was rage. I have been full of rage since I was about 12.
The details of my life aren't important, but the emotions produced are what's important. I had grown used to the anger and the rage. It made me want to fight every lost cause battle, every cause I saw as just in a world that seemed hellbent on dishing out only injustice. I wanted to save the world once, and I tried in various forms, but it turns out I'm not a hero. I didn't know how to be one then and I still don't know. Have I helped people? Maybe, but it was never enough and the world got worse and the more I tried to do right the more wrong I did and the further off path I got from my goals, distracted by petty people and their daily dramas playing out. Nothing hurts more than knowing your cause is righteous and despite everything you can do you still lose.
The rage hasn't subsided, it's still there, simmering under everything else waiting to be unleashed, begging me everyday to let it burn down the foolish nonsense of the world. But age and hard taught wisdom has shown me that unleashing the fire and rage might cleanse some wrongs in the world, but the gains would be pitiful compared to the cost.
It's not why I'm sad, I am sad because I have lost things I am not ready to put into words, a sadness that can never really go away. It is there everyday in my mind no matter how many doors I close it in, no matter what I do to forget it will be there.
So when people hurt me now the rage starts to rise, but the sadness engulfs that rage. When The rage bubbles up most of us shove it down, bottle it up until it explodes and we are yelling and breaking things. It never fixes the problem. Rage needs to be controlled, to be unleashed in measured appropriate amounts to get the results you need without burning everything else down in some misguided "the ends justify the means"mantra. Control your rage, let it make a road, not burn a town.
As for dealing with sadness, and real honest to god sadness, not some shit a teen pop star or edgy poet make you feel with some well placed words. No, the kind of sadness that can only come with having to live through an event that rips your heart out of chest and stomps it into the ground and leaves you laying there dead inside not knowing how to recover. That kind of sadness has lead me to what I do now, to make sure people know they aren't alone through their darkness and that someone is there for them. Check in on people you love, be there for them, even when they say they are fine and are taciturn, trust me they are not as okay as they are pretending.
I'm rambling a bit but to sum up: your emotions are part of you and the negative ones are going to have the most agency, Find ways to let them out in a small controlled manner rather than letting it all out at once. Focus it at a goal and let it carry you forward but never let it control you.
In the mean time:
Stay hydrated, keep dreaming.