My parents used to say ‘if you can’t say something nice about someone, then don’t say anything at all’. It was their way of trying to teach me about the power of positive thinking.
Recently, I had a chance to discuss this with my mother. She said she always thought I cared ‘too much’, to quote her. I asked how one could possibly care too much. She simply replied that I was always a sensitive kid who would go out of my way to bring home stray animals and injured birds or lizards. She said I cried when they inevitably died and I cried even harder when the most damaged ones passed away.
She then said she watched me, as a young adult, do the same thing with people. Often times she wanted to grab me and shake some sense into me because she could see these damaged folk were taking me any way they could. There were a few occasions where she couldn’t help herself and said something. I threw her comments away as rubbish, thinking if she didn’t know or understand my friends, then what hope did she have of understanding me. In hindsight, I see how right she was. But I wonder if I’d been able to see then whether it would have made any difference.
There is a part of me that thinks perhaps I DID know but chose to go my own way anyway, out of contrariness. I mean, what young adult would appreciate their mother telling them the friends one has are no good. It almost sounds like the ‘no one is good enough for my son’ shtick. Again, with the benefit of hindsight, I can see the lessons I learnt from these friendships have made me the person I am today.
I put this to my mother during our recent conversation. While she understood what I was saying, I don’t strictly think she agreed with me because her response was ‘but you were always going to be who you are now’. This struck me as being either terribly prophetic or terribly conceited of her, in that she was almost implying she knew how I would turn out, that I would be alive at the age of 40 and having the conversation I was having with her.
I disagreed, stating that no one really KNOWS what lies in their future because there are far too many variables affecting us all every second of every day. We talked about the Theory of Chaos and the infinite choices we face. Even though Mum said she didn’t understand all ‘this science stuff’, she agreed with me when I said that life just doesn’t present a simple plan; every nuance, every little bump and jolt is a reminder that chaos is constantly at work shaping our singular and collective futures. I said I believed the only way to not let this thought weigh us all down with abject paranoia was by thinking and being positive and maintaining an optimistic viewpoint.
The more I thought about this conversation, the more I realised we are suffering every day from a malaise that runs from the very poorest of poor on the streets to those in the highest positions of power. Negativity is being rewarded in this world when there so many positives are ignored. A recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald (sorry can't tell you exactly when except to say it was published this week sometime) pointed out how business, both public and private are rewarding mediocrity and indecisiveness in their managers by promoting them.
Another example of this is JU. I’ve noticed that negative articles tend to get the most responses. Hey, I’m guilty of it myself. I wrote an article recently, addressing a nameless nemesis. I was most colourful in my language, particularly in my title. To date, this post got the second highest amount of responses to any of my blogs. The highest amount of responses I got was for an article challenging the community that is JU. This particular gem elicited quite a number of angry responses from Jusers who took some sort of personal offence to my challenge. Again, focus on the negatives and reap the rewards.
Well, I’m going to let you all in on a little secret: the article where I led a vitriolic attack on a nameless somebody was actually an experiment to see how JU would react. I had observed that the more provocative the title of the blog and the more negative the content, the more people responded to it. So I conducted a little experiment, which proved my observations correct. I’m not going to apologise for tricking all those who did respond except to say don’t feel bad about being duped. We are duped every day into believing any amount of crap, from the street beggar who asks for 20 cents to buy a coffee (if you can find a cup that cheap, tell me where to get it) to the hallways of our parliament, where deceitfulness appears to be a prerequisite for entering politics.
I would like people to read this and react with humour. I think a lot won’t. I think some will be dreadfully offended. But I could hardly keep lying, could I? I really do want to practice what I preach, which is why I wanted to tell the truth to JU. Don’t feel bad, feel good. Express it, reward it, and pat it on the back. And leave those sad little negatives alone.
Cheers,
Maso