Stumbled across this last night while foraging through YouTube. Timely. Just a couple days ago I was talking with some friends over breakfast about how to deal with anger. Raises big, complex questions about the best way to measure effectiveness. In the short run, expressing anger (i.e. fighting, verbally or physically) might seem like the best or even only way to counteract some harm that is occurring. This is especially true, as my domestic partner Noa pointed out, when dealing with institutional violence, which often masquerades as nonviolent, ‘neutral’ policy. Fighting openly against it, bringing forth the anger it engenders, is almost a necessary first step to naming the harm as harm: bringing symmetry through self-defense. (Or, more aptly, community-defense.)

But if we look closely and objectively at the effects of acting out our anger, we might arrive at different conclusions about its effectiveness. Even if it successfully puts a stop to a particular attack, what cost does it exact on our own psyche? Our own well-being? (After all, this is supposed to be self-defense, right? Not just from external factors, but from internal ones, too.)

TNH isn’t saying we should never get angry. Not at all. He argues that our actions actually become more clear-sighted and, yes, effective, when we can take the extra step of transforming our anger into another, positive energy, like compassion. This conversion neutralizes the toxic effects of raw anger, while conserving its power and precision. Or at least, that’s the claim. Some might find it difficult to believe. Isn’t some energy always lost through a conversion process? Don’t we risk getting stuck, mired and deactivated in all that inward focus?

I don’t have answers, really: I can only speak from my own experience. Which tells me that I’m just as likely, if not more so, to get stuck, mired, and deactivated in my own judgments, irritation, upset, fury, and depression. And also tells me that I’m most capable of speaking and acting with force and finesse when I’m coming from a place of caring, not rage.

An example. A couple weeks ago, I had a confrontation with the boyfriend of one of my Faithful Fools housemates. (We’ll call this boyfriend Rick.) Rick is currently homeless, which is one reason he spends a lot of time at Fools’ court with Kat. One particular week, though, we were hosting a dozen college students for their seven-day Alternative Spring Break and needed as much breathing room as possible. I had told Rick this, and that we would need him to steer clear of the Fools unless he was there for a public event. But one afternoon, mid-week, there he was in the living room, playing piano. He’d also been over the night before, staying with Kat, but I’d let that slide, understanding the desire to hang out and figuring he’d move on by morning.

Anyway, point is, by the time he was fiddling at the piano, I perceived that Rick was doing something that I (on behalf of other Fools, too) had asked him not to do. So I went over and inquired as to when he planned to leave.

He didn’t.

A fight ensues. I yell at Rick. Yell! Me! Mind you, this man is pushing 60: could easily be my father. But he isn’t listening, and I am pissed. Which, of course, means that I can’t listen very well, either.

Back and forth we go. Rick feels he had a right to be here — he’s with Kat. Kat, I remind him, was in on the decision to reserve the house for necessary personnel that week, and should have communicated that decision to him. Even if she hadn’t, I had told him directly. Rick feels that he should have been included in the decisionmaking process, since the outcome affected him. YOU DO NOT LIVE HERE, RICK, etc.

I can tell he’s getting heated too because his eyes are half-closed and sidecast, brows permanently arched. Can you look at me, please, Rick? I finally plead, hands on my hips. He’s still sitting on the piano bench. No, he says, not right now, I can feel myself getting angry and I’m trying to control myself because I like you, Katie, I really do…

And at that moment, I remember the fear inherent in anger. Sure, Rick is being obstinate, using his superior age as a tool for condescension, and generally, as I comment to him, making me feel disrespected in my own home. But there’s more beneath the stubbornness. Here he is, an older Black man clinging to a place of his own, a space to play his music and store his belongings and come home to. And now I, a young Black woman, come along and take it away. He gets the same messages from all sides, every day: “You don’t have the right to be here; get out.” Who wouldn’t want a little control, a little say, over the main place they spend their time?

So I take a chair, putting myself on his physical level, and listen. Not only tell him that I like him, too, but show it. I don’t back down, but I don’t shut down, either. I even joke and play a little. Eventually we come to a compromise; a couple hours later, he leaves. With a smile. And a compliment — he saw what I was made of today, he says, and he likes it.

And of course, we’re on better terms now than ever before. Every time I see him he gives me a kind of knowing grin, and makes some remark or another about my toughness. Buzzed from sangria at the Faithful Fools’ fundraising dinner that capped off the week, he advised Ryan: Marry that woman. She’s a keeper.

And I know I can be straight up with him without fearing the consequences. Confidence and compassion don’t have to undermine each other; they can grow together.

I think this is what TNH means when he talks about caring for our anger. The art of converting an enemy into a friend.