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The Lost Child
Anger is not released: anger is relocated, reused, applied in a new way. Anger exists because something happened to you or was denied to you, and so you put it in living a certain way or creating a work of art or a happier child. When I hear someone talk about letting anger recede or of denying the existence of anger, I am listening to a liar.
— Marlon Brando
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Children not loved for who they are do not learn how to love themselves. Their growth is an exercise in pleasing others, not in expanding through experience.
As adults, they must learn to nurture their own lost child. There’s personal anger, but underneath there’s often universal rage; and when we are possessed, God help the man who’s on the end of that.
Deep rage is not about the man; deep rage is this: nobody ever saw me. Nobody ever heard me. As long as I can remember, I’ve had to perform. When I tried to be myself, I was told, that’s not what you think, that’s not what you ought to do. So, just like my mother and her mother, I put on a false face. My life became a lie.
That’s deep rage.
We have lived our lives behind a mask. Sooner or later — if we are lucky — the mask will be smashed.
What a relief to be human instead of the god or goddess my parents imagined me to be, or I…
