I don't want to write about anger.

Crushing the structures of solitude

Photo by Masaaki Komori

I considered writing about anger today.

The feeling has been licking at my heels all month. It’s been poking its head around the door I’m trying to keep closed, my desperate disbelief at how some people move in the world, what and who they believe. I keep rebuilding the pages in my mind, percolating arguments, the fire in my chest burning brighter.

I don’t want to write about anger.

The last time I felt a truly righteous anger like this was, as you can probably guess, 2016. That election spanned the first year and a half of my college career. I entered adulthood trying to understand who I was going to be and instead found the dark underbelly of who many people already were.

This is not a piece about anger.

I arrived at the Women’s Resource and Action Center in Iowa City that night with hope, for the light I saw in the world to grow bigger and for the darkness people around me kept insisting upon to grow smaller. I sat next to my friend Madi as states filled in with color like bad prom make up. She shared in my hope, and we felt it slowly dwindle away as the night wore on.

At some point I decided I couldn’t remain sober while watching Steve Kornacki announce my disappointment, so I went home. I grabbed two Busch Lights that belonged to my roommate out of the fridge. I hated Busch Light — still do, but with less arrogance — but I was a 20-year-old in a pinch, and the night was constricting uncomfortably.

I went to my then-boyfriend’s house, bless his heart, a Bernie-bro with little patience. I kept refreshing and relaying the results. I can’t remember what exactly he said to me, just an exasperation to stop, go to bed, how could you expect anything different? I rolled over and fell into sobs.

But remember, this piece is not about anger.

I’ve become more and more aware that we are all having entirely different conversations with each other and it’s forcing us past one another in perpetuity. I never predicted how much of adulthood would be spent looking at the same picture as someone else and seeing something completely different and feeling absolutely fucking crazy. I don’t know where to begin reconciling. It’s maddening how impenetrable this gulf between all of us has become. It’s maddening how no one can see their own part in the chaos.

Derek Thompson wrote a poignant piece in The Atlantic this month about how solitude is eroding much of our societal structures, one of which being the political world. He argues that our closest connections, that “inner ring of family and best friends,” is as strong as its ever been, and we have built more relationships with distant, tribal connections of shared affinities (think the people across the country who you can chat with on Twitter about how much you hate the Kansas City Chiefs) than any other point in history.

But while we’re glued to our phones or stuck at home, we’ve lost touch with those middle connections, the “village,” the “familiar but not intimate relationships,” and we’re no longer practicing the ability to coexist with differences. Thompson writes, “Families teach us love, and tribes teach us loyalty. The village teaches us tolerance.”

I think that’s why writing about anger feels so futile to me. If I scream, but no one is capable of hearing and processing my anger in an understanding and effective manner, did I even throw a tantrum at all? These structures we’ve built are no longer serving us. So we all walk on wildly into an isolating oblivion and I’m stuck here screaming into the void while the world turns.

I no longer feel human in anger.

I don’t think anger will help me see and be seen. I don’t think anger will help my humanity come alive. Maybe destroying the forces of solitude will. I suppose that’s what I’m desperately hoping for these days. As fires raged through Los Angeles this month, I scrolled through places to donate money and opportunities for folks to volunteer their time and was reminded of exactly how I felt before this election, that only we can save each other.

I cringe at how idealist this sounds and I know that most people reading this will, too. But the only way we will ever start having the same conversation is through the tiny steps we take toward one another. I have to believe that we’re capable of seeing the same picture — it’s quite frankly the only thing that keeps me alive.

Otherwise, I might let anger swallow me whole.

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