There's a time.

It's a funny thing, irritation.

What's the line between irritation and anger?  When does frustration turn into wrath?  How do anger and wrath look different, and are irritation and frustration the same thing?

I'm just thinking all of these things because I was irritated, or frustrated, or whatever, just now.

And really, what a weird feeling.  That instantaneous, gut-clinching, wall-building, fist-raising feeling of "are you SERIOUS?"  I hate that feeling.

Which is why I'm trying to second-guess it, you know?  Decide if it's really worthwhile or not.

Because - as we all know - there is such a thing as anger that exists for stupid reasons.

It's hard to be frustrated and have to consciously decide, "I will let this go.  I will unclench the knots in my stomach.  I will not raise my voice, fist, or walls around my heart.  I will let it go, because chances are, it's not a big deal anyway."

There is a time to fight, and a time to just drop it.

In other news, I'm reading this book, Shantaram (by Gregory David Roberts).  I am pretty sure that it was written as a memoir, a true story about something that the author actually did.  He tells about how he was in prison in Australia - sentenced to twenty years because of armed robberies - and how he escaped over the front wall of the prison.  He went, as a fugitive, to Bombay, India.  I haven't gotten far enough in the book to know how long he stays there or what exactly happens, but I've read enough to know that he gets involved with the Bombay mafia, as a street fighter.  I'm going to put the first few sentences here, just to give you a feel for the book.

It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured.  I realized, somehow, through the screaming in my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them.  It doesn't sound like much, I know.  But in the flinch and bite of the chain, when it's all you've got, that freedom is a universe of possibility.  And the choice you make, between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life.  

In my case, it's a long story, and a crowded one.  I was a revolutionary who lost his ideals in heroin, a philosopher who lost his integrity in crime, and a poet who lost his soul in a maximum-security prison...

This book, I'm telling you, is so good.  I wish I could write like he does, explain and describe like he does.  Part of me wishes I could go on adventures like he does, but the other part knows that I am just as content to sit here on my bed and read about them.

So I encourage you to go out and find a copy of this book, and read it.  Take it for what it's worth, but read it and soak it in.  We can learn a lot from what others go through.

That's all for today.  It's very humid and I'm thirsty.

Love you guys.

-Tara.