Interrupting your normal broadcast for a discussion about something that’s been weighing on my heart since I received this email late last night:

“Sometimes I get so shocked that people get so emotional when they write comments to posts. Some harsh words are being thrown around, and you can really feel how angry people get. It’s painful to read, like stabs of ego going right into my chest.”

Let’s talk about anger.

The truth: when I read the email my immediate reaction was welcome to the internet, honey. I slipped the laptop to the floor, got up from bed and made myself a snack. Leaning against my counter in the dark, with only the lights of the Bay twinkling in the low waves, I combed through my mental archives of Insults in Blogging. Before EcoSalon I worked in a much rowdier sphere, and if you think people get riled up about green, try health. I’ve received some of the most insane and vulgar messages imaginable. The first time it happened, when something I wrote made the Digg front page a few years back, I stumbled across the driveway to my friend’s apartment and cried in her arms.

And I’m no web celeb. Imagine what that’s like. Those in social media know the tragic Kathy Sierra case and more recently, Arrington’s need for personal security and a month on a beach far away. Bloggers trade war stories to support each other; we joke about and even co-opt the attacks to deal. Hey, you get great nicknames that way.

But why are we the people so angry?

A few weeks ago I was having cocktails with friends at a place called the Spinnaker, a place so incredibly uncool it’s cool again. (Or so we tell ourselves.) We were discussing The Great Problems of Our Time: dating, global warming, web startup names. After several minutes of debating whether Solution A was superior to Solution B on Topic Whatnot, my friend’s husband interrupted us all with an incredulous jut: “None of this is going to fix anything until we address our psychological ills.” People are angry.

Road rage. Screaming at the travel agent and gracing the pedestrian with the bird. Telling off the Verizon rep after finally getting him on the line. Sneering at the cashier, barista, the whole of retail. How are we so infuriated by things that merely glance off our lives? Why the kneejerk viciousness?

Anger is something I know intimately; maybe you do, too. Anger seemed to be what the 80s and 90s were all about. We all learned to cope somehow - I learned to be soothing. This worked fabulously well until I became an adult and realized after half a decade of feeling not-quite-right that I was angry myself. With the support of my closest friends I spent a very long time exploring, for the first time, my own anger. It wasn’t pretty. It was terrifying. And there’s more in there yet. Ripping off that dark strip of anger that had fused to my heart was painful. What if people thought what’s underneath, the baby rawness, was ugly?

And so, as the waters below my window moved under the night sky last night, I reflected on these strands: the desperate and lonely undercurrent of anger in social media that bursts acidly from old wounds poked; our culture of anger; my own quicksilver vitriol. I poured a glass of wine and shook my head - I’ve left not a few angry comments myself. The internet makes people angry itself, a friend says. It’s complex and the rules are only half-visible and that’s threatening.

I’m fascinated by this sociology in action. How couldn’t you be? Social media is a Wild West of capitalism and culture. It’s messy and…angry. And authentic. It’s a beautiful and simultaneously ugly reflection and I love it deeply. Taking another view, however, the internet is a city and there are just some parts of cities you don’t go because you know they’re gritty. This seems to be the prevailing “wisdom”. That’s pragmatic, but it’s not going to fix anything until we fix our psychological ills. And the only way to do that is to spill the light on those dark patches of inadequacy that masquerade as a fury to be written off.

EcoSalon, even with the occasional oddball from the random intersections of the internet, is relatively wonderful. I don’t censor much. But last night, after reading that email, I realized we all have an opportunity to talk about Anger, and I shouldn’t be peremptory or insensitive to it. Being jaded is better than running to my friend’s door to shed hot tears, I suppose. Jaded. Such a vacuous misdirection of a swelling wave beneath.

Compassion isn’t about soothing or making peace. It’s not about deleting. It’s about paying attention to the anger. Because anger is a very important emotion. And clearly, there’s a lot of it everywhere. And until we all decide to listen, we’re not solving anything.

I’ve been thinking on that phrase from MOGO: Live your epitaph. Personally, I don’t want “jaded” anywhere near mine. And I hope anger isn’t anywhere near Ours.

Tell me about anger.

P.S. Anger as entertainment.