Angry Girl Song

Peace and light and harmony - this is how I try to move through the world, more successfully at some times than others. But every now and then I find myself raging against the hatred and pain in what feels like an uncaring world. At times like that I'll often find myself listening to my favorite angry girl song, Metric's Monster Hopsital:

I fought the war
But the war won't stop for the love of God
I fought the war
But the war won

That's how it feels: like even believing in peace and harmony is a massive exercise in futility. Like sides don't matter because the war itself wins, with the anger and violence and downright craziness woven into the very fabric of this terra all-to-cognita.

I listen to this in the car, turning the volume up past Loud and beyond Deafening and moving right on to Shattering, yelling along with the singer and beating on anything handy, my palms sweating and my heart racing and my spirit feeling torn up by its roots from its grounding. I want to smash things and hear the sound of breaking glass and see blood from cuts and wounds dripping off my hands and feel the pain. Feel the pain. Feel it, free it, let it consume everything until whatever I think of as me disappears into a void of nothingness, of deep, endless, empty silence. Where nothing could ever begin to matter.

Slowly but inevitably I come out of this fog of rage and despair. My surroundings, which disappeared into the void alongside me, begin to become visible again, blueness of sky or the sweet sound of rain on the car's metal roof. I feel my lungs expand, the breath flow in and out of my body. I turn off the CD player and return to the center of my being, knowing that what is all-encompassing is not violence and rage but compassion and acceptance. That even these moments which feel so far from my true self are a part of my walk in the path of God.