Positive Vibes

[Andre]

Different , where'd you get that from?

[Gandalf]

I hear people talking about a positive attitude making a difference in life, but if that isn't who you naturally are then I don't think it is worthwhile. I think it is always better to remain realistic rather than to delude oneself into thinking the world is a happy accident. If anything I probably feed more off of negative energy. Part of me really does get kickstarted when faced with an obstacle. The obstacle typically brings out the fire and in some ways that is really good. By kicking against something you can reignite yourself. For instance, doing really well in my MA was a complete reaction to my lazy BA. It wasn't positive energy that drove me, but the negative energy that had become imbued in me. Years of feeling down on myself told me it wouldn't happen again. I worked hard and it was a painful process, but it was only when I had forced myself through it that I was able to appreciate what I had done and it was negative energy that did it. I wasn't sitting there with writers block saying sunny things to myself, I was sitting there with a cup of tea being harsh on myself and lo and behold, you produce something good. You kick yourself into it.

I'm not saying it works for everyone, but it does for me in a lot of instances. Hard ball behaviour comes from a spark of negativity. It is riskier, but that is gambling. Hippies don't rule countries. Neither do I, but it is people with few or no positive vibes who I would assume take their careers and lives further. Clearly there are also drawbacks to negative attitudes and in some ways I will temper that this year, but never so far as to be positive. A positive attitude is something I find quite corny. To do ones best is enough and the quality should shine through. It's the quality, not positivity.

Positivity is something I always find rather American. The silly shiny teeth, 'the always can do' attitude. It is alien to most English people. English people are dour, but they don't bother with things good vibrations or any of that. I miss two things about my country - the food and the earthy cynicism. An English person knows the world is a bit crap and they say it. 50% of the time an American will say he/she believes in God. That for me says it all about posititivity and negativity. I would much rather be negative and realistic.

[Gandalf]

That post above might have sounded odd. All I was trying to say is that sometimes adversity and negativity can sometimes be a positive influence. Tyson speaks about his boxing career and how nervous and scared he could be before a fight. Yet those feelings allowed him to channel it all into an awesome career prior to the prison fall. Nobody is thinking positive things going into the ring, or getting ready for a lecture, or chasing someone in a police car, or climbing Everest. You are getting the job done. In real life and situations that are pressurised and in the now, you can't be feeling positive and in many instances it would probably be a detriment to your performance. I think there is a time and place for being positive and having a laugh, but you have to be serious to get the real work done.

[Andre]

Yeah theres different contexts to it all though and not everyone walks the same paths.

Work and achievement takes knowledge and practice until you can operate in the automatic zone impartial to emotion, unless of course thats in the job description like care giving.Thats why the good ones there are very special people.

But if we are talking emotional stability there are two sides to that as well; you have positive people who expect the very best and some get devastated when the worse occurs and others plough on and go even higher. Then you got pessimists who expect the worse all the time and enjoy it too to a degree, because they can get prepared for the worse and if the worse doesnt occur they are more content in normality than some of the people who expect miracles and dont get it. Opposing emotional extremes that still work.

Balance without being taken to one of the opposite extreme points of view is hard for most of us until we realize we are sometimes mirroring in others what we hate in ourselves and sometimes thats an opposite we support by being opposite to it and that can be addictive too. Like people who try to make someone else wrong at any cost; thinking that must make them automatically right. Its dumb and self degrading and addictive to many and the cost is actually theres cause they are stagnant in a point of view behind another point of view. Want creates more want, it doesnt create contentment. The richest man is the one who knows he has enough,because rich or poor, they are free from the constraints of being run by the expectations they've learned and accepted as being real or the truth from other people who also fuck up.