Wise anger is like fire from a flint: there is great ado to get

Host: The rain had just stopped over the city, leaving behind a street soaked in amber reflections and the scent of wet earth. The neon lights of a half-closed bar flickered through the mist, their colors bleeding into the puddles like forgotten dreams. Inside, smoke curled slowly above empty glasses, while the clock ticked with a tired rhythm.

Jack sat by the window, his fingers wrapped around a glass of untouched whiskey. His grey eyes stared through the glass, sharp and distant, as if he were seeing something beyond the night itself. Jeeny sat across from him, her hands folded, her eyes warm yet unsettled. There was a quiet between them — the kind that holds a thousand unspoken thoughts.

Jeeny: “You know, Jack… Edward Everett Hale once said, ‘Wise anger is like fire from a flint: there is great ado to get it out; and when it does come, it is out again immediately.’”
She smiled faintly, her voice carrying both tenderness and weight. “I’ve been thinking about that — about what it means to be angry, but not consumed by it.”

Jack: “Wise anger,” he muttered, swirling the amber liquid in his glass, watching it catch the light. “That’s a romantic idea, Jeeny. People don’t control anger — it controls them. Always has. Always will.”

Host: A gust of wind pressed against the window, and the lamp above them flickered. The shadows deepened on Jack’s face, cutting sharper lines across his features.

Jeeny: “That’s not true. There are people who’ve turned anger into change — look at Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, even Malala. Their anger wasn’t wild; it was deliberate. It burned with purpose, not destruction.”

Jack: “You’re confusing conviction with anger,” he said sharply, his voice low, almost a growl. “Those people had discipline. They channeled pain into reason, not rage. Anger blinds, Jeeny. It makes fools think they’re heroes.”

Host: Jeeny leaned forward, her eyes darkening, her breath steady but tight. The light caught her face, soft but unwavering.

Jeeny: “Then why do you think so many stay silent when injustice happens? Fear, Jack — fear of being called ‘angry.’ Sometimes, anger is the only honest response left.”

Jack: “Honesty doesn’t justify chaos. You think the French Revolution was ‘wise anger’? It started as justice and ended in blood. Every man thought his fury was righteous — until heads rolled.”

Jeeny: “And yet, without it, the people would have lived and died under chains. Do you think freedom is born from politeness?”

Host: The rain began again — a slow, tapping rhythm against the windowpane. A taxi passed, splashing through the water, its headlights slicing through the fog. The room seemed to grow smaller as their words grew larger.

Jack: “I’m saying the line between wise and foolish anger is thinner than you think. Everyone believes their anger is ‘justified’ until it burns their own house down.”

Jeeny: “Maybe the point isn’t to avoid the fire, Jack, but to learn how to hold it without burning ourselves. Hale said it — ‘great ado to get it out.’ Maybe wise anger isn’t the absence of fury, but the mastery of it.”

Host: Jack’s brow furrowed; he stared at her, a mix of irritation and reluctant admiration. His jaw tightened, then eased.

Jack: “You really believe anger can be mastered like some kind of art?”

Jeeny: “I do. Like fire in a forge. The blacksmith doesn’t fear the flame — he shapes it. It’s the careless who get burned.”

Host: Jack’s eyes drifted to the street, where two strangers argued under an umbrella, their voices rising, then fading into rain. Something softened in him, almost imperceptibly.

Jack: “You sound like you’ve practiced this… personally.”

Jeeny: “Maybe I have.” She looked down at her hands. “When my father died, I was furious — at the doctors, at fate, even at God. I wanted to scream, break things, disappear. But anger didn’t heal me. It only started to, when I learned to understand it.”

Jack: “Understanding doesn’t make it righteous.”

Jeeny: “No. But it makes it human.”

Host: Silence fell between them. The air carried the scent of coffee and rain-soaked streets. Jack’s hand trembled slightly as he set down his glass. He wasn’t used to this — to feeling seen through.

Jack: “You think I don’t know anger, Jeeny? I’ve lived with it my whole life. At my father, my job, the damn system. Every time I tried to be calm, it found me again — like smoke in a locked room.”

Jeeny: “And what did it give you?”

Jack: “Control. Power, sometimes. At least it felt like that.”

Jeeny: “And peace?”

Jack: “Peace?” He laughed bitterly. “Peace doesn’t come to those who still have something to fight.”

Host: The light from the bar sign flickered again — red, then blue, like a pulse. Jeeny’s eyes glistened, not from tears, but from a quiet fire that matched the one in him.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s the tragedy, Jack. You think fighting is the only way to live. But Hale’s words — they aren’t about suppressing anger; they’re about freeing it without letting it consume you. The spark, not the inferno.”

Jack: “And if the world keeps throwing stones? If every spark finds only fuel?”

Jeeny: “Then maybe the wise are those who refuse to let it spread. The ones who strike the flint only when it matters most.”

Host: The tension thinned, replaced by something raw — a fragile kind of truth. Jack leaned back, exhaling slowly. The rain outside turned into a misty drizzle, like the city itself was calming down.

Jack: “So you think wisdom is about restraint.”

Jeeny: “Restraint, yes — but not silence. Silence is the coward’s peace. Wise anger speaks when it must, not when it can.”

Jack: “You talk about it like it’s sacred.”

Jeeny: