The glorification of anger and rage as an aesthetic among activists so desperately needs a critique. I hope everyone realizes that when you sit in resentment and store it up inside you, it can show up in all kinds of destructive ways and one of the primary ones is self-sabotage.

And when I notice how many self-sabotaging patterns we have among us, I start to wonder if there's a connection there.

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Anger and rage are inherently powerless states because they focus outward on the cause. Anger and rage point to what was done *to* you, they point to the source. That is their job. That is the information that tells you where the problem is.

The Aesthetic of the Wound

So here's what I want to name right now. First, anger and rage are valid emotions and they have a job to do. That job is not to distort your personality into the most feral and antagonistic version of yourself. It's to help you see that something's wrong, and help you notice what it is.

That's it, that is its whole job. But what is often said next is that anger and rage are desirable because they motivate you.

And that's where the lie begins.

Anger is Information, Not Identity

Anger and rage are inherently powerless states because they focus outward on the cause. Anger and rage point to what was done *to* you, they point to the source. That is their job. That is the information that tells you where the problem is.

And here's where I'll get accused of toxic positivity, but I don't care. I don't let bullies police my light, trying to smother it with darkness. The thing that motivates you, when anger and rage have done their job, is HOPE.

Hope is the stirring of action within you, it is when blame shifts into empowerment, it is when you stop centering the harm and start centering what you can do about the harm.

Hope is what says "no matter how daunting and overwhelming this harm seems, I can face and overcome it, and if I can't do it alone, I will combine with others and we'll do it together."

Hope is where you turn away from your own sorrow and step into your creative power to imagine and enact solutions.

If we don't move into the energy of solutions, we sit in the energy of our problems, and there are no solutions there. And this is what people are doing when they make their resentments their whole personality, and try to frame them as righteous anger and rage.

The Material Cost of Resentment

And the consequences of this aren't just collective in the way self-sabotage shows up in so many countless ways to cut our projects short and snuff out potential alliances before they have a chance to bloom into solidarity.

The consequences can also show up in our mental and physical health. They compound our anxiety and our trauma, and when we find ourselves stuck in self-defeating patterns that rob us of our successes, we experience a seemingly endless cycle of getting our hopes up and let down again. And again. And again.

And this reinforces the jadedness that tells us hope is just toxic positivity, a lie they tell angry people to lull them back to sleep.

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Hope is when you stop centering the harm and start centering what you can do about the harm.

Dawn of the Creative Yes

So don't get this twisted. I want you to be angry, I want you to feel your rage. Those are valid responses to injustice. My hope is that I can talk you into moving through them, doing deep work to release them if necessary, and clearing out the clutter of long-held resentment so the light can get back in.

And then walk forward in a raw, determined hope that is rooted not in vague platitudes but the certainty that together we will overcome every form of tyranny over us.

We are more than capable of doing the work that needs to be done. *If* we can get out of our own way.