I Heart Outrage

Use of the word peaked in the middle of the 19th century but it's been on the rise since the 1950s. 

Outrage.

We love being outraged. We sometimes even seem to seek out reasons to be outraged.

In my tiny town, the local paper has a weekly religious column. Some people read it simply so they can be outraged by its subject matter. Then we talk and type and tweet about how outrageous it was and how we are nothing like the columnist. Then all our friends all like and agree with us, sharing our outrage.

We love to be outraged by exotic, foreign injustice and by the politics of those on the other side of the fence and find ourselves casting stones all over the place. 

This is not to say these things aren't wrong, so don't be chucking rocks at me. I just think the time has come for inrage. 

I wouldn't be the first to use the word, but it still sits atop a little squiggly red line on my screen. Why not add that little sucker to your dictionary? Inrage.

If rage means both "a vehement desire or passion" and, at least in the country I'm from, "to go out and enjoy oneself socially", then I'm going to define inrage as "the action of contemplating that the current extent to which one is outraged by the world is a reflection of one's own disappointment at one's incapacity to do what it is one was born to do and most loves doing".

Now is the time.

Inrage. Stop chucking rocks and sort yourself out, then go make a slingshot. 

And, if you must, point it at me.