I found myself at wit's end (admittedly not a very long trip) when I started trying to come up with something to write about today. So I decided to take my own advice for a change, and went to my dependable Google search bar and typed in "productivity", then clicked on one of the links that materialized: "productivity quotes". One of the first to appear was this line from Mary Garden, a Scottish operatic soprano who did her thing during the first third of the twentieth century. Says Mary: "A wonderful emotion to get things moving when one is stuck is anger. It was anger more than anything else that had set me off, roused me into productivity and creativity. " Hmm. Sounds like a pretty feisty lady to me. And she's talking the meat and potatoes of my blog, there- creativity and productivity. So I'm running with it.
I've always had a healthy fear of my own anger, and never, never would previously have considered it as a tool for productivity. (Creativity is another thing entirely. I'm thinking now of a strange mix of Jackson Pollack, Charles Bukowski and Curt Cobain.....) Whenever I've had the choice, I have preferred to keep my anger a solitary affair, throwing private tantrums in the solitary safety of my own company, never to be witnessed by casual friends and not-so-close relatives and/or loved ones. (Of course, as we all know, we typically reserve our worst behavior for the ones we care the most about, and I'm no different from anyone in that respect.) I've always felt those little occurrences of self-indulgence were a pretty low-risk way to let off steam, provided I didn't let them get out of hand.
One particularly extreme example I can recall happened the day that I'd finally had it with a stubborn ink-jet printer, which had repeatedly refused to do right...... one time too many. I calmly and purposefully unplugged the varmint from my computer system, took it out onto my rooftop deck, and pitched it into the parking area below. Actually, I enthusiastically hurled it into the air as high as I could, all the better for it to be thoroughly smashed when it impacted the pavement below. It felt great! I don't think anyone saw me commit this minor murder, but I still fantasize that a roving band of Jehovah's Witnesses did just that- witnessed (that is) me and my faulty contraption and subsequently made themselves absent from the neighborhood as fast as their little legs could skeedaddle. But then we always like to assign a measure of heroicism to our most insane acts, or am I speaking only for myself?
Anyway, back to the quote and the point. I suppose I can see Ms. Garden's side of the issue. I can certainly imagine all manner of historic occasions wherein anger must surely have spurred on the most honorable and significant manifestations of productive behavior. And mayhem notwithstanding, I guess the ends usually justify the means. I think the trick may be to recognize that anger, as with all human emotions, can quite easily pick me up and carry me away. Surely the consequences of tossing an IRS agent off my roof may be further-reaching than my previous fits of fury have proven. So maybe with some insight, I can continue to use my anger as a safety valve, taking care to examine whether it might have any chance of motivating me productively, rather than just landing me in the pokey. Be well and, above all, stay cool.
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