The violence of anger

Auto potrait of the artist Daan Noppen

Anger is powerful and brutal. When it showed up on my doorstep it came unannounced without a warning, it just stepped into my world and then never left. Like a dark knight that came in the middle of the night.

I did not want to admit it to myself at first, but I feared my anger. Deep down I had a strong intuition about it’s strength. I became aware how much suppressed anger I had. This erupted in moments when people and things from the past surfaced. I feared it’s destruction.

Anger did not need my permission to get to work.

And there was no stopping it. It was meticulous and remarkably consistent. I started saying no to everything, invites, projects, galleries, coffee dates. Then the noise and chaos started to die around me. Many people disappeared from my life. It was as if I stepped into another timeline and life came to a full stop.

I lived so many old stubborn identities. And I started to understand why, because so many of the masks I had worn enabled me to survive. This is what I had been doing for more than two decades, survive… But there was no escape to it now, everything needed to burn to the ground untill nothing remained. Nothing was meant to be left standing. But my ego was trying to put up a fight and resist this destruction. Then the anger turned towards me.

I had so many habits, escapes, that tried to keep the old structures standing. All of them were revealed in the rage of my anger. Everything that was blocking me and keeping me from moving  forward surfaced. I was completely unaware of most of them.

But there was one hidden demon that shook my core. It was like my existence got turned upside down. Darkness itself was betraying me. My shadows had become my refuge. When something came into my life without darkness I did not trust it. I had taught myself a lie. That anything of value had to be earned through suffering. My own darkness had trapped me, and I stayed because it felt familiar.

I felt the ground dissapearing under my feet. There was noting left to hold on to…