Maybe It Isn't Anger. Maybe It's Grief.

Partway through her show in Boston, Sara Bareilles talked about a grief she hadn't realized she was carrying. Not for her friends who died, or for her struggles conceiving a child. For her country. So she wrote a song about it, called Heartland.

Around the same time I was thinking about something Stephen Colbert said on Anderson Cooper's podcast. He said anger isn't really an emotion at all. It's an attempt to not feel one. Armor against how we actually feel.

There's one thing most of us would agree on right now in the US. People are angry. What if that's not the whole story.

Ask people what this country is supposed to be and the answers aren't that different. Freedom. Opportunity. Work hard and build a better life than your parents had. I'd guess most people don't think they're getting that.

Some are grieving work that went away and a main street with empty storefronts. Some are grieving the belief that the country was slowly getting fairer. Those aren't the same losses. But they're the same promise, broken in different places.

None of it comes with a funeral. There's no casserole for the loss of a future.

Here's what I believe most strongly. The moment we start ranking whose suffering counts, we're in real trouble. A person whose grief gets ruled out of bounds doesn't stop grieving. They go find someone who will take it seriously, and not everyone offering is acting in good faith.

Hand a grieving person a target and they'll feel better for a little while. It feels like being heard. But it isn't the same thing.

Read the full piece on Substack.

Learn more about the adventure at www.heart-strong.org