Fury

"So what are you gonna do with all that fury?" He asked me. 

I was sitting in his office; it was our normal meeting time, once a week, an opportunity for him to tell me how amazing I was and for me to not believe it.

"What?"

I didn't have any idea what he was talking about.  I was actually in a pretty good mood that day.  I didn't know where he was getting fury.

"Your fury", he said again and I started to wonder if he was drunk.  A lot of artists are drinkers and, yeah, it was 9 in the morning but it was New York, after all.  Loose morals.

"You have a crazy fire inside you", he said.  "You're pretty pissed.  So what are you going to do with all that?"

"Ummm...."  Dude, not you too.  What does everyone want from me?  I swear to God, nearing the end of college life is the worst goddamn thing in the world.  Everyone wants to know what the fuck you're going to do now, whether it be with your fury or your $20,000 in student loans.  I was just trying to make it through the week--no--the day--fuck--the hour--and not splash through a 4th story window.

So I did what I was so good at doing, what I have always been so exceptionally good at doing:  I slumped down in my chair, narrowed my eyes and said, "I dunno.  Whatever."  I dismissed it.  I dismissed him.

He guffawed and shook his head.  "Your generation", he mumbled.  "That 'whatever' is just a big middle finger at old folks like me."

Truth be told, it was a good question.  Fury is something that needs to be directed at something productive.  If it's not, it turns ugly.  You reach a point in adulthood where fury can no longer be directed at your father without it being pathetic.  (I forgave my father a long time ago.  The only thing he is guilty of is being totally clueless about what it meant to be a father and, for that, I blame his father.)

For a while, I directed my fury at Saving the World.  Yes, it was an all-out endeavor.  Present me a social problem and I'll yell and scream about it for a living.  The problem with that, though, is that your fury becomes compounded.  Trying to Save the World reminds you daily how shitty people are; how corrupt governments are; how much we take each other and every living thing for granted.  This only feeds the Fury Tumor. 

Know what else throws gasoline on this fast-growing fire?  Life and all that bullshit.  People dying, people betraying, people walking into your space, fucking everything up and then leaving again, like a rude guest at a hotel who leaves towels all over the goddamn place.  The furious part of you tells them to go fuck themselves, covers yourself with chain-metal made of death stares and 50-cent words.  And still, the fury grows.

While I never thought I was a rock star, I always, always thought I'd be dead by now.  It's so morbid and people don't understand that kind of thinking, which is why I never say this out loud.  But when I turned 23, I was devastated.  Living past 22 was not part of the plan.  I always figured something bizarre would happen to me, like I'd get caught in the crossfire or my airplane would go down.  For a whole year in my 20s, I waited to die suddenly.  That's totally crazy, right?  I waited to die suddenly.  I knew it was going to happen, I just didn't know when.  I was scared for it to happen but somehow, I was convinced that it was inevitable.  I started having panic attacks, which, if you've ever had, you know are totally fucking terrifying.  I was panicked because I didn't know why the hell I was still here. 

I blame my grandmother.  I've never met her; she's dead.  She committed suicide years before I was born.  They say that kind of thing is hereditary.  No, I'm not going to kill myself; I don't have any idea how I would do that without either making a mess or mis-firing and ending up with half a face and still alive.  Plus, my own mother would never be able to recover from that.  But I wonder if my grandmother had the same fury; the same driving force in her gut telling her she needed to do something, telling her she needed to go, go, go.  That urge is powerful.  And I mean, it was a different time and she was a woman.  Maybe she just needed to turn it off.  I wish I could ask her.

So what are you gonna do with all that fury?  Whatever you do, don't ignore it.  Because it will get you.