Not very Ramadan-like, I'm afraid

Gosh its been a harrowing week. (I promised myself no more depressing entries but honestly, I cant seem to write if am not possessed with strong negative feeling)

Medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas said Anger is "the name of a passion. A passion of the sensitive appetite is good in so far as it is regulated by reason, whereas it is evil if it set the order of reason aside."

The zen I am supposed to achieve in this month has been spectacularly nullified.

Am so consumed by anger, anger, anger. All the time. And its manifesting itself in my actions. And it's becoming tiring. Its tiring to fight all the time.

The problem is that I am fuelled into action by anger - it drives me to do things, but not without cost.

I have also realised - that while it is all well and good to be driven by a sense of righting wrongs -it is a fine line between 'the good fight' and downright Self-Righteousness - which Karen Armstrong described as "a gleam in the eye".

I have seen all manner of people succumb to this, and most especially myself. Religious zealots, flaming liberalists, 'progressives', atheists. All kinds of people for all sorts of issues - for as long as there is a conviction that there are other people out there doing wrong things - the sense of high indignation and passion to correct a situation they perceive is WRONG can bring out the worst in people.

And really the most disturbing part is that a lot of balanced, level-headed people end up being vile on account of a deep-seated sense of 'social justice' - that certain things shouldn't happen in certain ways that affect certain persons/themselves.

That at the onset notions to right the wrongs are lofty and noble, but somewhere along the way attains the odious character of Judgmentalism - resulting in tyrannical, unrelenting opinions that really are not helpful at the end of the day - because it doesnt achieve the objective of 'social change' but does quite the opposite - by demonizing the 'perpertrators' and polarizing issues even further.

Not helpful at all.

An angry response is a primitive, unsophiscated action. And it blinkers you into feeling a surge of power to handle an otherwise difficult and seemingly helpless situation - although Sincerity will inform you, if you listen, that nothing good has been gained by it. And I don't know why after all this while I still get so angry.

I try to keep telling myself this all the time - but its so hard to wink away that gleam.