Rage? What Kind of Rage?

Some of my clients refer constantly to feelings of rage. There is one kind of rage that is very emotionally based and usually associated with boundary violations such as mental, emotional and physical rape. It is Scorpionic in nature. Very painful, requiring a catharsis for healing such as the one Rodrigo Mendoza went through in the movie, "The Mission". This is also the rage referred to in the opening lines of "The Iliad" -- "Sing, O Muse, of the wrath of Achilles">

The other kind of rage is what I'd like to consider today -- rage that the world isn't perfect. It sounds so simple but not to the Uranian personality to which it falls prey. This dastardly realization usually comes after a long period of idealism or what turns out to be idealisticaly high expectations, a sort of ivory tower. I think it's what is meant by Utopian.

The rage comes because of some very personal way in which the ideal is shattered. It is existential. One rages against a reality that is impossibly imperfect. One rages against a God that "botches everything up".

• failure to meet the ideal partner [after years and years of trying and perhaps changing everything possible]
• the way one's children "turn out" [Uranus destroyed his children because he thought they were ugly]
• not being able to get thin enough or rich enough despite following myriad different sets of rules so you decide to just break them all and go to hell in a hand basket
• where is the honor, the glory, the rewards for doing one's duty?
• a long period of earnestly preparing to deliver messages to the world that no one wants to hear, as it turns out
• crusading endlessly for something that others blithely discover 20 years later and start to lecture you about [global warming, ZPG, preparing for retirement]

You can quickly see that these things build up over a long period of time and include periods of denial and recommitment to an impossible ideal. After realizing the person has done absolutely everything they can and/or followed the rules or invented "full proof" formulae themselves [they thought], the crash down into reality is almost unbearable.

Other types take this in stride with aging. Thus sayeth King Faisal in the movie "Lawrence of Arabia", "Idealistic young men make wars. Cynical old men make the peaces."

The perfect antidote to the Uranian personality and its inevitable rage is a little bit of down-to-earth scratch-where-it-itches take-what-you-get-and-be-grateful-for-it, eat-what's-on-your-plate Taurus. The Holy Grail here is contentment.