Coping 1: Rage-making
Coping is short posts on intermittent Fridays about coping methods for doing creative and focused things in an unfocused world. They are often not at all novel, but I want to highlight them because, for me at least, they work well. In the first Coping, rage-making.
A side project of this publication is detailing methods for working creatively in uncertain times. These are ways of coping, and maybe even thriving, when the world feels like it has a lot of downside to offer.
Today's method has been with me, off and on, for at least fifteen years. It’s about channelling anger and frustration into something good. When I’m facing something that makes me feel impotently angry, the energy and intensity of feeling needs to go somewhere. Instead of letting injustice or powerlessness eat me, I like to rage-make. It doesn’t have to be physical making – though it can be. It can also be writing, drawing, collage, or even planning. Whatever the activity, the goal is to take the power of the anger and give it a chance to become something beautiful, useful, or at least interesting.
Rage-making is comparatively easy: take a creative practice you already do and use it as an outlet when you feel angry and powerless. This isn’t a substitute for feeling anger, but is instead a way of experiencing it with structure and a satisfying output.
