Conquering Existential Anger
Confessions of a formerly angry young (wo)man
There is a lot to be angry about.
You know what I mean: existentially. When I was in my early twenties, I just had this vague rage at the state of the world. I know a lot of people have this. There is a lot to be angry about. This is a far-from-perfect world. There are social ills like hunger, homelessness, and many shades of discrimination all around us. Anger is a rational response sometimes. But in my case, it was not.
A little bit of righteous indignation goes a long way. Anger can be a great transformative power. At some point, you should acknowledge all the things you hate. I hate homelessness. I hate that there’s still poverty. I hate the way women are treated, especially in the Middle East. This righteous indignation spurred me to become an activist and was a great motivator in terms of my education.
Anger is also a poison. It rots you from within. Failure at my attempts to be effective — and the ensuing feelings of powerlessness when I couldn’t right the wrongs that need to be righted — augmented my anger until I had to fundamentally change the way I experienced the world. I did this by thinking through the issues I was passionate about in a different way.
There are still countries where human rights violations are not just routine, they are policy. A continuing source of anger for me is the cowardice of western feminism when it comes to the plight of women in the Middle East and Muslim communities. Western feminists are usually very good at pointing out the problems and injustices in society, but very bad at finding solutions.
The western feminist’s (or any SJW’s) solution to every problem usually involves more government intervention. But it’s only easy to ask for more government help if you have an Enlightened, wealthy, benevolent government. If you have a racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, theocratic, and despotic government — the last thing you want is more government.
So unfortunately for feminists and reformers in the Middle East, they remain blessed with fewer allies than they should have. In light of this observation, you may ask me why, then, did I move back to the Middle East? Sometimes things can be very good and other things can be very bad at the same time. Sure, there’s sexism, racism, antisemitism and all the other ‘isms’ a-plenty but that doesn’t mean there’s no light.
I didn’t experience the worst of it, but the mild racism and the not-so-mild sexism I did experience growing up made my life more unpleasant that it had to be. Being an Arab woman born in Dubai, however, is still winning the lottery compared to being a woman born in Saudi Arabia. Dubai’s not perfect, but it’s slowly moving in the right direction. Since there’s no such thing as an ideal country, that has to be enough.
Accepting that the wider world isn’t perfect either but that it is getting better — has to be enough. It is the temptation of youth to want to shake-up the status quo when it’s not working, but even painfully slow progress in the right direction is better than immediate change if that change isn’t for the better. It was this realisation that soothed my post-adolescent ire.
I began this process by discovering the Human Progress website, then I read Steven Pinker, and soon I understood that there is very little empirical evidence that the world is getting worse. Most people think the world is getting worse, but this is perception not reality. There are still patches of dysfunction, but they are now an exception to the rule. They are not the rule.
Getting your own little patch of the world in order is also an underestimated contribution. If just a handful of people do that the world instantly becomes a better place. Realising that I was on my own, that I was the architect of my own life, and there was nothing or no one who was going to make my life better other than myself — was liberating for me.
It’s still hard to explain to people that I am an incredibly happy person, despite some pretty egregious flaws and social injustice around me. It’s not that I want to be an apologist for those things or pretend they don’t exist. You have to slowly learn to live around them whilst trying to be the good and the change you want to see in the world. Or you’ll be miserable and angry.
I still have a little flame of righteous indignation inside me, but it’s a manageable spark now rather than the wildfire it used to be. So relax! Don’t sweat the small stuff. Let go of any unprovoked, unexplainable wrath. The story of humankind has been one of progress. Even though it sometimes happens in spite of ourselves, the world is getting better every day.
Thank you for reading — I hope you found my thoughts interesting. You can find links to my other work here: https://linktr.ee/sayde.scarlett
