-{ redgeek.net }-

I’m about 100 hours and 9 day deep in a 12 day workweek. My boss is on vacation, my boss’s boss is gone, and I’ve got three “Priority 1” clients. The sales engineers have all incredibly disappeared. I don’t even know if I have the time to solve the outstanding issues for even one of the clients. I don’t have the tools I need nor the time to configure them if I did. I’m reverse engineering kernel-level behavior on a proprietary black box. I’ve had no direction, no disclosure of policies, no knowledge of timelines and business plans and product lines. No indications of power imbalances, policy spins, or expectation management. I have no idea what’s been promised, aside what from comes out of the clients’ mouths – which, in the business world, is naturally suspect. I rise, go to work, return home, eat, and sleep. I haven’t even had the time to train. Things are not going well.

I noticed the low-grade frustration building on Sunday, but I kept turning the world upside down: this is on opportunity to stand and lead. Push through, quietly succeed. But I could feel the frustration boiling to halfway through today – I haven’t been meditating; I haven’t been keeping myself under control. I haven’t been breathing. I know I have to get of work before someone trips one of my wires; before I counter this imbalance; before I let myself get out of control. I left promptly after my daily status report hit the Exchange server at 7pm.

I speed south down I-15, industrial music coursing through my veins, driving too fast, too loose, too dangerous, walking a fine line in order to fan the flames, anticipating the workout to come. How far until I push too far? When do I move from dangerous to self-destruction? How do I tell the difference?

I needed to harness this. I arrived at the park fanning the flames, embracing the adrenaline and anger, reflecting on fire, desperate to take the distress to a lesson. Fire is brilliant and contagious, actively seeking out things to consume, even to it’s own peril – as opposed to water, which quietly acquiesces to it’s environment, taking whatever shape is available. I wanted to explode, to nurture this feeling, to kindle the blaze; I wanted to exhaust the fire, to use it, to not let it exhaust me. This, I decided, would be my lesson.

I bowed to my teacher for the day – the simple presence of the park – and leapt right our of seiza into … something. I don’t know what it was – not a particular dance or scheme, not some pre-arranged sequence of movements, but this attitude, this mindset. Something of a cross between a tiger and a tengu, for those that know me. Dances came and went, in evolutions and permutations, schemes and modifications and variations. I found myself quite loud and snarling, spit flying, full of guttural emanations, striking harder than I’ve ever imagined. This was not “do what I have to do to survive” mode, it was far beyond. My survival was not in question – the nature of the enemies demise, however, was the only thing that could be unanticipated. I shudder to think what would have happened if someone had challenged me during this time. I was not right in the head.

I was unadulterated rage.

In my mind I was destroying enemies without hesitation in ways that were … mean. There’s no other way to put it. I was vicious, violent, unnecessarily cruel. And I was looking forward to it – and it was coming without effort or arrangement – a natural progression, if you will. This was not “let’s see if my art works,” this was a visceral understanding that it does, and that I wanted to inflict monumental pain; I wanted to destroy the soul, not just the body. I was sadistic. And I wanted that. I wanted the next guy to attack; I wanted to ignite more fuel, I was compelled to destroy. I’d recognize of piece of a dance or a scheme, here or there, but it wasn’t pre-meditated – my body was manifesting some form of interpretation of my mind – and the mind was bloody murder, nothing else. In retrospect, the ferocity astounded me.

I don’t know how long I went, but it was dark when I finally sat back in seiza. The lesson began to form: Turn it off, turn it off. Meditate on water. Then back up, rage, back down. Turn it on, turn it off Up, rage, down. Control. You are in control. Up, rage, down. Instant on, instant off. Is there any left? Any ember of fuel? That pit of heat in my belly? Yes – back up – consume, destroy – exhaust this fire, use it! – back down. Control, take it back down.

It wasn’t until I finally exorcised those demons that I realized my body was shaking — no, more of a violent pulsing – something far beyond physical exhaustion. This wasn’t my just muscular chemicals – I’m quite familiar with that – this was like my soul vibrating. It was electrified, pushed toward action and powered by something far beyond animal instinct. This was rage defined by intent, powered by … well, something else. That revelation is for me, and I couldn’t be audacious enough to try to put it into words. I can say, however … I scared myself a bit tonight. A lot, to be truthful. There’s a dormant dark side of myself that’s more capable and more vicious – and most importantly, more ravenous – than I would have guessed.

I have a long way to go.

But It was one of the best lessons to date. At least now I’m familiar with the territory. And I’ve got some experience with letting the tiger out, and of caging it again.

Letting it out? Easy. Reigning it in?

That’s part of what scares me.