Anger

["Luca Provenza" <basim326@...>]

I'm not really sure if this is appropriate for this group, but I feel 
it is, since this is a very important topic (at least to me)...

I started thinking this over about the time someone (I can't remember 
who) pointed out that, at the beginning of Rawn's absence, the deluge 
of posts shrank to a bare trickle, and that we should have faith in 
ourselves and so on - I wanted to post this then, but I thought that 
I could handle it myself.

Thing is, I can't - see, I have a problem with anger; it's not that I 
get angry at the drop of a hat, or that I take it out on people who 
don't deserve it. It's that, in recent months, I've been exposed and, 
in a few cases, subjected to discrimination of some of the most 
insidious sorts. For example, I have been thoughtfully informed that 
I am less than human because I am heterosexual and male, and I have 
seen massively muscled men over six feet tall take pleasure from 
taking a girl, barely 5'7", and twisting her arm behind her back 
until she screamed and then saying it was a joke. I've learned that 
the girl who used me for attention a while back caused the 
psychological scarring that I have to this day to make a point - that 
men are weaker than women - that love doesn't exist, or it's a 
liability if it does.

It frightens me - I see these people being reduced to a level less 
than human because of something that they were born with. They didn't 
choose to be male or female or white or black, yet their experiences, 
their feelings, and everything that they believe in is totally 
invalidated. _My_ thoughts and feelings are invalidated because I'm 
male. And these racists and sexists are forcing themselves on others.

Now - as far as Hermetics goes - I've been trying to keep my cool and 
failing miserably. I want to find some way to give these people an 
empathy for what they're doing or, failing that, neutralize them - 
but I can't. The law protects them - if I disagree with them, I'm a 
homophobe or sexist or racist and I need to be sent for sensitivity 
training. Of course, if I were to lose it completely, I'd be arrested 
for a hate crime even if my reasons for doing it were completely 
personal.

I guess I'm rambling, but I'm just wondering: what can you do? What 
can I do? This is interfering with me like nothing else has; I have 
visions in my head of giving these people what they deserve (in my 
lower mind, at least, which includes beating the crap out of them) 
and I have problems cooling down; I've resorted to working until I'm 
too tired to think about it. Needless to say, this sort of precludes 
working on the Spirit and Soul exercises.

I probably should've asked this earlier, but I guess I'm stubborn... 
so... what can I do? Ideas?

- Basim