Anger and Compassion

Saturday, March 03, 2006.

The horrible journey of being human is accepting that there is more than one force at work at any one time. Creation and destruction. Hope and despair. Love and hatred. For me the two polarities that most define me are anger and compassion. My highest desire is to be a compassionate person to all people I meet and journey with, and to build a vision of common compassion in public life. The darkest side of me exposes anger and indifference to the plight of others, whether it be my wife or the poor and war-stricken in Somalia.

Watching an episode of Battlestar Galactica, episode 3, this afternoon, the cylons and humans are looking for a certain pulsar - a grouping of two dead stars that rotate around each other, emitting pulses of electromagnetic radiation. This image seems like an interesting and fitting metaphor for the dualisms we all keep. When we see it in others we call it hypocrasy. When we see it in ourselves (if we are bold enough to admit it) we say it's just the way life is.

And perhaps both of these are true.

We are only able to determine the value or worth of some thing, whether it be a tradeable item or a lofty ideal in comparison, nay competetion, to some other item or ideal. When we are forced to wrestle with our true natures, which are never wholly rational nor emotional, the two rotate around each other giving off alternating pulses of energy. Some of it positive and creative, some of it negative and destructive.

Will there ever be a final reckoning when one force dominates and annihilates the other so that there is only anger or compassion? Will they eventually merge into something transcendent? Will they continue to circle each other ceaselessly? Or will their energy entropy to nothing, leaving a husk of a man behind?

Perhaps that is my question - my quest for compassion, inside and around me - where has it got me? Am I any more compassionate? I feel the opposite is true, that my anger is all the more dominant. I feel my compassion slipping away. I find it hard to care, to be compassionate towards others, no matter how close or distant they are to me relationally. Am I doomed to lose the passionate motivating force of my life?