Tinctori Te Salutant

I remember the day I realized I had anger issues. It was thanksgiving. The family all came over to my house, everyone brought a dish but I did most of the cooking- I got a brand new oven and was glad for the chance to use it. There was limited space in the kitchen, and everyone was trying to reheat the food they brought. People kept bumping me and every time I turned around, there was someone in my way! My little sister had a pan on the stove, but when she went to turn it on, she lit the wrong burner. One of my plastic containers was on that burner and it instantly melted and started to burn. She turned it off immediately, and everyone was suddenly silent. They were all looking at me. She was looking at me. Waiting for me to shout. Waiting for me to kick them out of the kitchen, to accuse her of ruining my stove, to tell them all off for getting in my way. My sister was afraid of me. And I could feel it.

I think when people hear the words “anger management issues” they tend to think of big, red-faced masculine men who beat their families and/or drink. They think of physical violence, and rage. And I think it’s really easy to justify your own anger, to say that you have a REASON and that you don’t need to “control your anger” because it’s not like you fly off the handle and hit people. But that’s not the only face of anger issues.

I’m a 26 year old woman. I struggle with depression and anxiety, and I’m a very soft soul. I care deeply about people, I try not to hurt the feelings of others. I am never violent. I rarely yell. I am not a “angry person.” And yet my sister was afraid of my anger. Because anger hurts when it comes from someone you love.

My anger has always stemmed from my insecurity. I tend to take things very personally. I get upset when I feel like people don’t understand me; which sometimes would lead to arguments with my mother where we were both saying the same thing, but I still needed to correct her because she didn’t understand that I understand. I got angry when I was overwhelmed, when I was scared, when my anxiety was high. I used to lash out at people when I hurt their feelings because I was so distraught that they were hurt by me and how DARE they be offended by what I said because OBVIOUSLY I didn’t want to hurt them. My anger made me unpredictable, it made me frustrating, it made me scary.

Anger doesn’t make me feel good. Anger doesn’t get me what I want. Anger alienates the ones you love, and makes you feel alone. Anger makes it hard for others to trust you. They don’t trust you with their feelings, they don’t trust you with the truth, they don’t trust you with their safety.

Anger isn’t defined by hitting people. It isn’t defined by testosterone. It isn’t defined by whether or not your feelings are righteous. Anger is a just pressure inside you; it’s undirected energy. And that energy can be channeled into other things. It can be channeled into empathy (I understand why you did what you did and I forgive you). It can be channeled into self improvement (I’ve said something wrong and I recognize I can present myself better). It can be channeled into helping others (you have done something to hurt others, so instead of attacking you I will offer my support to them).

There is so much you can do with that potential when you recognize that anger is simply one way of translating all that energy you feel. When people say, “redirect your anger,” they don’t mean to angrily draw or angrily punch pillows or angrily go for a run. They mean, let that energy flow through a different channel. Recognize that “anger” is not a poison created by the body, it’s just a negative label given to a source of energy and motivation that limits its potential.

I laughed, I shrugged. I told her the plastic will wipe right off, and the Tupperware container? Heck, now it looks kind of like an art piece. No big deal. Why don’t you heat your food in the microwave while I clean off the stove and we can all take turns in the kitchen after that.

Pearl is considered to be one of the most neurotic characters on the show. She displays clear anxiety and also a lot of grief. As someone who suffers from extreme anxiety, I find comfort in her character.

Pearl is an intellect who still has an overemotional mind. She cries a lot, and she demonstrates countless emotions while still being an amazing strategist/skilled sword-fighter/warrior, and is able to construct amazing machines out of scratch.

Pearl expresses herself with her body, and uses crazy amounts of hand gestures to make her point clear.

Pearl brags about herself, but also struggles with herself and her strength.

Pearl was able to survive losing someone she loved so dearly, is able to still be around Greg, and is still able to love and try to support Steven, even if he’s the outcome of the loss of Rose Quartz.

Pearl struggles with socializing–particularly with humans. She has a hard time empathizing or sympathizing, but still tries her very best to be the best she can be.

Pearl is home-sick, but her love for Steven outweighs her desperate desire to leave the Earth.

Pearl is loyal. She was loyal beyond compare to Rose Quartz, and she is loyal to her team.

Pearl is a flawed character. She says the wrong things, reacts the wrong way, and overall makes a lot of mistakes. But she still is able to make up for them. And she still carries on.

Pearl is passionate. She adores her swords, her axe, her spear, and she adores the skill of dance.

Pearl finds logic in everything–every single detail.

Pearl is super tidy. She actually makes me want to clean my room.

Pearl finds that strength comes in more ways than just physical. She teaches everyone that strength is also in the mind.

Pearl is usually the first to worry about Steven and make sure he isn’t harmed.

This is really exciting, linguistically speaking.

Because it’s not true that Tumblr never uses punctuation. But it is true that lack of punctuation has become, itself, a form of punctuation. On Tumblr the lack of punctuation in multisentence-long posts creates the function of rhetorical speech, or speech that is not intended to have an answer, usually in the form of a question. Consider the following two potential posts. Each individual line should be taken as a post:

ugh is there any particular reason people at work have to take these massive handfuls of sauce packets they know they’re not going to use like god put that back we have to pay for that stuff

Ugh. Is there any particular reason people at work have to take these massive handfuls of sauce packets they know they’re not going to use? Like god, put that back. We have to pay for that stuff.

In your head, those two potential posts sound totally different. In the first one I’m ranting about work, and this requires no answer. The second may actually engage you to give an answer about hoarding sauce packets. And if you answer the first post, you will likely do so in the same style. 

Here’s what makes this exciting: the English language has no actual punctuation for rhetorical speech–that is, there are no special marks that specifically indicate “this speech is in the abstract, and requires no answer.” Not only that, it never has. The first written record of English (actually proto-English, predating even Old English) dates to the 400s CE, so we’re talking about 1600 years of having absolutely no marker whatsoever for rhetorical speech.

A group of teens and young adults on a blogging website literally reshaped a deficit a millennium and a half old in our language to fit their language needs. More! This group has agreed on a more or less universal standard for these new rules, which fits the definition of “language.” Which is to say Tumblr English is its own actual, real, separate dialect of the English language, and because it is spoken by people worldwide who have introduced concepts from their own languages into it, it may qualify as a written form of pidgin.