I’ve known Joe for about 20 years and lately is the first time I’ve seen him mad.

He treads his part of earth lightly, disturbing little, asking little. Why then did a disease pummel him? Why him? Why not take down a vicious man, a tyrant man, a destroyer? It’s disproportionate. This disease, which shall remain nameless here so it doesn’t get any special attention, this disease is like a rampaging rockslide barreling down to flatten a gerbil.

The upside is that Joe can now get mad. His gerbil-ego grew and emerged one day in proportions of a gigantic rage, foreign and frightening and taking a menacing shape.

This rage is beautiful. The power of this disease is of no account compared to it.

I thought rage was an explosion of emotion, born of despair or self-absorption – sometimes both. Now I see it can be the first note in a song of self.