Last week I had between two and three days of internal rage, primarily because of the things I saw on social media. But one post got me really angry. Want to know what it was?

It was a video of people filming their neighbor as they confronted her about stealing their cat.

That was it. That video sent me into fits of mental rage. And sure, the neighbor’s tone was infuriatingly condescending and yeah, this was at the end of a long Twitter (I refuse to call it X) rabbit hole that included many triggering tweets as dictated by what must be an exceedingly efficient algorithm that wants to keep me outraged and scrolling.

But still.

It’s a video of a woman who had allegedly stolen a cat. In another era that would be on a television program hosted by Bob Saget. In 2024, it’s shared on TikTok to enrage people like me. And it worked.

So, yeah, I have some anger issues.

Here’s the ironic part: I meditate. In fact, I currently have a streak of more than sixty days. Uncontrolled rage tends not to be the lot of the mindful.

If you aren’t familiar with the practice of meditation, you just sit, close your eyes (not everyone does but I can’t imagine not), and focus on your breath. You focus on the breath going in. You focus on the breath going out. You get curious about it. You may even have an object of meditation. When thoughts come, refocus your attention on your breath or object of meditation.

Some people make a mental note of “in” and “out.” Some people count their breaths. Odd numbers on the inhale, even on the exhale, get to 10 and start over. My object of meditation is the feeling of my hands on my thighs and my feet in contact with the floor.

It’s simple when you break it down. But frankly so is putting a ball into or through a net, plucking a string to make a pleasant sound, or arranging letters into words and words into sentences to tell a story. Many people pursue it. Some spend their lives trying to master it. And if anyone at a party starts talking about it, you hope they’ll shut up about it.

It’s important to remember that meditation doesn’t make thoughts go away. It gives you distance from them so you can get curious about them, recognize their ephemeral nature, and let them pass. Popular metaphors for this are clouds passing through the sky or leaves floating on a stream. The clouds and leaves pass, the sky and stream remain.

My mind tends to feel like a windy ass storm and someone who dumped their raked leaves in the stream behind their house. The thoughts keep coming.

I recently listened to a podcast that described thoughts as more like a soundtrack. (While I haven’t read the guest’s book, here it is.) That seems a lot more apt for me. And I definitely have some Greatest Hits.

For starters, there’s always a pretty steady stream of stand-up comedy and movie quotes running in the background like the televisions that are perpetually on in a Best Buy. I also have a running to-do list. This often pops up during meditation as my brain will not let me take a break. “Don’t let me disturb your frou-frou practice but don’t forget the dog’s heartworm medication. If you forget it, she might die. But please, finish sitting. You definitely won’t forget this even though you’ve been meaning to do it for a week.”

Then there’s worry and hypochondria. I can extend any circumstance to its most logical conclusion. This usually involves and awful health problem that leads to bankruptcy or paralysis or death.

After that you have your garden variety word associations, feelings, and details from the events of the day that all get cross referenced and recombined at the speed of thought.

And then we have what I like to call “The Anger Database.”

Every unresolved argument, every remembered slight, every injustice. They’re all in there. And here’s what is so infuriating… wait, wait, not infuriating, interesting. I am curious about this particular pattern of my mind so I will call it interesting. Here is what is so interesting about The Anger Database: in moments where I am feeling frustration, my mind will make a call to The Anger Database just to retrieve an angry memory for me to latch on to.

Want to hear some of the tracks on my Anger Greatest Hits?

• Once when I was running on 5th Avenue in Brooklyn, I was running the wrong way down the street in the bike lane and an entitled cyclist flicked me off. There was plenty of room for him and there was no traffic. It was the pandemic, and I swear I could see the smirk through his mask.
• In line long line to get New Jersey Transit train tickets during rush hour at Penn Station, I took two steps out of line to check train times on a monitor. When I tried to get back in line the dude who was behind me wouldn’t let me and he said, “Sorry. You lose.”
• Recently at a dog run, my dog got into a little scuffle with another dog. Usually, the owners separate their dogs and move on. In this particular case the guy glared at me and said, “Not cool! You shouldn’t bring your dog here if it’s going to behave like that.”

Written down these may not seem that infuriating, but you weren’t there! Who the fuck do you think you are, anyway?

I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.

They are all ridiculous (that’s just an amuse bouche of rage from The Anger Database) and they all happened with strangers and they all happened years ago (except for that douchenozzle at the dog run, that happened a couple of weeks ago – Sapphire and I have been going to that run for years without incident so who’s fault is it, dick?!)

In therapy I had a revelation about The Anger Database. For a memory to make it in to the database Inside Out style, the incident has to be pretty low stakes but the other person’s reaction has to violate a pretty common rule of human decency. Someone steps out of a line? Let them back in. Another human being is in your precious bike lane? Let it slide (especially when most cyclists in the neighborhood think they can ride anywhere and all pedestrians and all cars must let them proceed unscathed.) Your dog sucks? Don’t bring it to the dog run.

Clearly, I’m bringing my own biases, which leads me to the real realization: no one can possibly know what I think the rules of common decency are. They’re too busy worrying about their own. I should have more patience because the world doesn’t revolve around me and life is too short to waste it on anger.

Sadly, reasonable conclusions don’t erase the database.

A key tenet of meditation is that you are not your thoughts. You also aren’t supposed to get caught up in the story. Don’t let your mind make up things that haven’t happened yet.

But if I’m not my thoughts then who am I? And stories and narrative are how we make sense of our lives and the world around us. And the key to being mindful is just to let all of that pass like clouds passing through the sky?

That makes me pretty… dammit. Let’s just say it makes me pretty interested.

(And I hope that bitch gave the damn cat back.)