Managing your anger during the COVID-19 lockdown

Anyone who is anyone is coming up with tips to deal with the lockdown these days—first world problems and how bored privileged people can make the most of their time. How could I add my two cents to the self-care package? Interestingly, the answer (to a question I hadn’t been asking) came in a fit of rage.

A month-long isolation, especially with the same set of people, is begging for tempers to flare up at some point or the other. Maybe no one’s helping you with the chores—the dishes don’t clean themselves up! Maybe that person you were vibing with left you on read (during the lockdown!). Or perhaps you aren’t getting a moment of peace with the TV blaring all day and the endless Zoom calls and other woke things all of us are doing. And if you have even a modicum of conscience, you’re probably appalled by the shitty behaviour of some people at large right now—namely your megalomaniac leaders who turn your countryfolk into circus monkeys on the best day and a vitriol spewing murderous mob on the worst. Maybe your family is laughing at Islamophobic jokes in the drawing room. Or maybe that annoying uncle won’t stop sending those horrid Whatsapp forwards with their toxic positive nonsense. Anyway, you get the picture.

For two days, my rage has been steadily building up to the point that I, who has always judged those who call themselves misanthropic, am picturing endless suffering for the human race, thinking that if the world ended right now, it would be too easy an escape for humans. I was being bit by scores of mosquitoes and wished that their spawn would go and suck the bejesus out of a multitude of humans—even as I was killing these buggers with my notebook. Now, these thoughts are pretty uncharacteristic for me and the dozens of people who have accused me of being a naive idealist would probably reassess their better judgement, were they to hear these. But a person cannot go and murder people in cold blood like Jack Torrance in The Shining, I mean, you could, but your fight is against humans at large, champ, your family is but a speck of dust in the larger scheme of things. (Disclaimer: This is meant to be cheap and aggressive humour, and is NOT an invitation to terrorism. Stop reading everything so literally, smh)

So here’s a list to deal with that rage:

1. Punch the wall until your knuckles are bloody. Alternatively, a close friend would recommend running headlong into the wall. You could try both if you feel particularly vicious.
2. Go through your social media and see other people do fancy stuff, like making dAlGoNa cOfFeE and working out, or better yet, celebrating Diwali—as if the world isn’t on fire.
3. Write your own social media post venting out your anger, abusing everyone to hell and back like they deserve and attract random trolls and shitposters if you’re lucky; and brutal, humiliating censure from your family if you aren’t. How dare you threaten the happy vibe with your depressing ass?!
4. Run out into the streets and challenge the coronavirus to a duel.
5. Meditate.

Oops. Not quite what you were hoping for? Well, I still am angry. So maybe ask me again later when I am not fantasising about human torture. That reminds me, have you read A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift? Short for A Modest Proposal For preventing the Children of Poor People From being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and For making them Beneficial to the Publick (1729), is an essay in which Swift proposes that the Irish poor could eliminate their poverty by selling their children to the rich, as food. Here’s a juicy morsel to tempt you a bit:

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasie, or a ragoust.

I don’t like giving out spoilers that way, but people hardly read these days. Do yourself a favour and read it. It is a pretty brilliant example of rage writing. It also mocks the whole pretence of being a neutral and objective observer, of measured apolitical writing that doesn’t/shouldn’t offend anyone.

There are enough blogs and some really good articles on what you can do to cool down from anger. But if your rage is at the world at large and everything that really seems to be going wrong with it, don’t try to kill it. Cultivate it, be smart and get to know things better, find ways of holding those in power accountable. Silly fantasies of Thanos erasing half the population or a Joker coming to end the rich are okay for momentary comfort but don’t get carried away. For once, use your rage to do something that those you’re angry at aren’t doing—constructive shit.

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Featured Image: Francis Bacon, “Study after Velazquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X” (1953). Source: Flickr