PONDERING THE POWER OF THE POISON PEN

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” So says Marianne Williamson in her book,
A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles
, Harper Collins, 1992, (Pg. 190).

Banish inadequacy. Forget about fear. I like outrage! It is so exhilarating. I like the rush you get when you blither and blather and bluster and stamp your foot in rebellion against things that are wrong, people who are stupid, circumstances that could change if only somebody would take the initiative to change them.

I like writing outrage! Fiery prose and flashing images, metaphor in exaggeration, honing in and cutting to the chase. Outrage makes for strong writing, bold writing, writing that never doubts its wisdom or its motives.

I like the results I get when I write outrage. Writing outrage gives you power. There have been times in the past when writing outrage has served me well enough, created the spark for policy changes, brought people to their knees by the need to defend the indefensible, opened a space for flexibility that never showed itself before, and might never have made an appearance had I not poured wrath from a poison pen (well, keyboard, to be accurate). But then, when you write your outrage, you can make it a little more interesting if you put some limits on the need to be absolutely accurate.

And so it surprises me a bit that I am cautious about writing outrage. Why, just yesterday I wrote a pretty good blog about an outrageous incident I have been wanting to write about for some time, and I published it, and then, an hour later, I went back and deleted it. They say you should be careful what you publish on the Internet, it could come back to haunt you.

Maybe I am cautious because I know how it feels to be the target of somebody else’s outraged writing. Not very often, thank goodness, but the memory stings, nonetheless. One time when I was young, and vulnerable, and committed to following proper policy, somebody wrote me a letter asking for confidential information. I casually replied, stating the company policy. The request had been written by a doctor, not an M.D., and I had not recognized the author as a doctor. It wasn’t long before my boss received a letter of outrage, a letter where the author had made his point by underlining some rather spectacular comments about my response in red pen, recommending that I be dismissed immediately. Two things gave this letter a terrifying authority, the vividness of the writing, and the professional confidence bolstered by the societal status of the man who wrote it.

I learned, from that experience, how letters of outrage are mediated. My boss, rather than being pleased to find me obeying company policy, was anxious to make change so that no doctor should think our organization incompetent. He taught me how to recognize the initials that tell you you are getting a letter from a doctor. Then my boss explained to the doctor that I was young and had not recognized that a doctor was writing to me. Having flattered the doctor, he then embarked on an exploratory conversation to determine why the confidential information was needed. He resolved the situation by finding a way to give the information without violating our confidentiality policy. The doctor got his information, my boss didn’t have to fire me. A happy-enough ending, you would think, except that it didn’t feel happy to me.

I felt burnt even though I was not fired, even though I might have been fired had I failed to follow the policy that got me into trouble when I followed it. I don’t know which hurt more, the doctor’s brilliantly insulting prose, or the fact that a doctor got more attention from my boss than a client would have had if a client had made the same complaint. It is the burnt feeling, smoldering inside me for thirty years now, that trapped and undefended feeling, the injustice, the humiliation that makes me cautious about writing outrage. It’s a glimmer of compassion for the little people who will be burnt in the fire that opens up the possibility of change.

I like to act with compassion, but it will only take you so far when things need to be changed. And that’s how it gets so confusing, facing the fact that outrage is sometimes more effective as a change agent than compassion will ever be. I said at the beginning that I like writing outrage, but that is not entirely true. My feelings on the subject are mixed. I like that first few moments of outrage, when you know for sure that you are right, and the people you are writing about are stupid. Later, it gets more complicated. I look to the future and find I would prefer not to be remembered as The Outrage Lady, the embodiment of someone else’s unhappy memories. And I prefer not to feel a lot of outrage, which is what I feel when I write outrage. Putting it out there on the page makes the injustice all the more cruel, the offenders more offensive.

I prefer to be The Hope Lady, reputed for offering different perspectives on old hurts, reveries on my favourite topics, pages for playing and pleasing and plunging into the warm depths of fond recollection. Still, I cannot escape the knowledge that outrage sometimes packs more power than hope in the way I have been writing it. And it is hard to resist taking the easier path when something needs to be done. And I can name you several things that ought to be changed, that aren’t being changed, that possibly could be changed if I got the ball rolling with a little of my well-aimed outrage. But I won’t write them on this page, not today, anyway. This is THE HOPE LADY Blog, after all. Outrage seems to be out of place here.

Still, if there is one important thing The Hope Lady persona has taught me, it is that I should never say never. For already, at this moment, The Hope Lady is bidding me to wonder how outrage and hope could be expressed at the same time. Knowing that change is both possible and needed, perhaps we can learn something from asking, “What would The Outrage Lady Do?”