Last week, I got really angry. I’m not going to talk about why I got angry, because to do so would require me to violate the privacy of the person at whom I was angry. Let’s just say that I felt like I’d been done wrong, and I was royally pissed because of it.

So, I needed some way to deal with this anger. I needed to blow it off, somehow. My first idea was to get on my bike, go to the tollway (very little traffic), and just drive. This may seem like an odd thought, but motorcycle riding can actually be very therapeutic. It’s quite cathartic, and an emotional release was what I felt I needed. However, in my condition at that time, I would have likely just driven as fast as my bike would take me, and if I didn’t get pulled over for speeding and have to pay the largest ticket in the history of mankind, then I probably would’ve crashed, and if I was lucky, died. I say “if I was lucky” not because I felt like I wanted to die, but rather because, were I to crash going at the speed I surely would have been going, I would have been better off dying than surviving the crash, because no amount of protection can keep one from harm at those speeds. I would’ve ended up a vegetable for the rest of my life, or severely disabled.

So, luckily, I had enough good sense not to get on my bike right then, but I still needed to do something. I looked around my apartment, and one can’t look very far around my apartment without seeing a blade of some sort. I have knives, daggers, and swords decorating the walls of my apartment, and right then, I wanted to use them. I tried to think if there was something nearby that I could stab and slash without hurting anybody, without making a significant mess, and without paying for any damage I would inflict. I could think of nothing.

So, my next thought was violent video games. I figured slashing, shooting, and generally killing would be a useful outlet for my anger. So, I popped in Wolfenstein 3D (a classic), turned on all the cheats, and played at the highest difficulty. I didn’t want anything to stand in my way of killing as many Nazis as I could. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a cheat to give me all keys, so I ended up at a location where I couldn’t find a key, and therefore couldn’t progress in the game. And I had already killed all the Nazis on that level. I gave up in frustration.

So, then I switched to a fighting game: Bleach: Shattered Blade. This game has the added benefit of utilizing the Wii’s motion-sensing technology, so instead of just pushing buttons, I’m actually swinging the Wiimote around, as if a sword. I thought, for sure, this would help me work out my negative energy. After a few rounds of intense slashing, stabbing, et cetera, I was very tried, but still angry.

You see, I learned there that there’s no such thing as “negative energy.” (Stephen Hawking would disagree with me, but I’m talking about in an emotional/metaphysical sense, not a physical one.) It may be true that anger gets endorphins pumping, which gives one energy, but that’s not negative energy, it’s just energy brought on by negative emotions. By trying to get rid of the energy, I was treating a symptom, not the disease.

So, as I sat there in my chair at my desk, tired, trying to catch my breath, angry, and not knowing what to do about it. I was just so very angry, and there was nothing I could do to satiate my hatred. I needed to rail against the person who had wronged me so. I pulled up a chat log on my computer that I had had with this person. You see, a couple days before, we were the best of friends, and it was only through some unusual circumstances, which I still don’t understand, that I had become this person’s enemy. I read these chats, and found some advice I had given. My anger started to subside as I realized how much I cared for this person. I was angry because I had been pushed away, when I was trying to help.

I dropped to my knees and prayed for forgiveness. That was what I needed to do to get rid of my anger all along. Nothing but the grace of God could satisfy me in that hour of need. The love I had previously felt for this person returned, and all anger disappeared. Why I didn’t turn to God in the first place, I cannot say, but at least, in the end, I found the solace, not that I was seeking, but that I actually needed.

As a side note, one other thing I did take away from this experience is the need I have for something to be able to test my swords. I’m thinking some sort of mannequin-like thing, maybe made out of styrofoam, that I can cut, stab, slash, and generally destroy, and then once it’s no longer usable, throw out. I think it’d be very useful for me to have such a thing, and if anyone knows where I can get something like that, I’d very interested to hear it.