Passion never comes alone. Anger always rides shotgun. And viceversa.

Fire gifts us heat and light. Fire burns us down to ashes. I find no better metaphor for the two faces of the same coin: passion and anger.

I am a passionate person. To the point where I can freak others out or seem completely ridiculous. I wake up every morning with a song in my head, I throw my arms wide when our son comes in from school or wakes up in the morning, I cry buckets at movies, sometimes at youtube videos and welldone advertising, I fall inlove deeply and always long for fairytales. But the fire in me that fuels this passion can burn fields. Fields of relationships. I am becoming more and more aware of the fact that I posess an amazing and dangerous weapon: my passion – anger coin which can flip in an instant if I am not careful.

I am sure some of this (if not all of this) I was born with. The fire I feel igniting and growing inside of me when I love, when I am in awe, when I feel pure joy, can burn through my best intentions when I am enraged. Injustice, pompusness, the presumption that I am stupid or I can be played, ignorance, double standard, are the matches and the gasoline on the fire.

Writing is both my shelter and my whip. Whenever an idea wakes me up in the morning, I come here and type. I know that in communication the first rule is to have your audience in mind but, truth be told, I don’t write to be seen as much as I write to see myself. At the same time writing can be a whip that leaves scars and sets me back weeks, if not years of work. I made a rule for myself that I would not send something until 48 hours have passed since I wrote it in anger. And still at times, especially when my body is depleted because of exaustion, hunger, anxiety, depression, pain, anger gets the better of me and tricks me into thinking that pushing the “send” button is an act of courage. When in fact, it only represents pushing the button that reads “boom”.

We have no time for anger. It scares and distances us. And to a certain extent, I think it should. The way I feel it when it comes out of me and when it comes towards me is akin to a release of energy that is too powerful for anyone to withstand. I get why it pushes people away. And I believe that we should try to look beyond anger, that we should not instantly dismiss people who display it and realize that behind anger there may be passion. And a lot of pain. But passion for sure.

The question therefore is not how can we push this person away but how we can flip the coin of anger so that its side of passion shines bright.