Writes Arthur C. Brooks in "Make a To-Don’t List/When you’re feeling stuck, focusing on the things you hate can help" (The Atlantic).
This is consistent with my adage Better than nothing is a high standard. And the famous saying Less is more.
Brooks assures us that following the negative way does not make you a "negative person." I feel sorry for anyone who's governed by the fear of negativity. How cluttered your world must be!
I'm excerpting from this article, so let me assure you that Brooks covers the religious aspect of the via negativa, which is fantastically important. Get more info about that at "Apophatic theology" (Wikipedia).
To continue excerpting:
Write down the things you do out of habit or obligation, even though they lower your spirits. Perhaps you’ll resolve to avoid a few toxic friends.... After a relationship ends, write down a list of all the dimensions of your romance that were problematic, and that you should avoid in the future if possible.
Be very specific, such as “Do not get a pet together” or “Do not move into his van.”...
Ha ha ha. I hope your list is that funny.
The via negativa is also useful for reviving an existing romance that isn’t going so well. If that’s the case for you and your beloved, sit down together and ask yourselves, “What are we doing that is making us unhappy?” Then resolve together to chip away the detritus harming your relationship and find a much better one within the old shell.
This sounds like the old story of how Michelangelo made a sculpture: "You Just Chip Away Everything That Doesn’t Look Like David" (Quote Investigator).
And it reminds me of an old expression that I haven't heard in a long time: Let's not and say we did.
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23 comments:
"I feel sorry for anyone who's governed by the fear of negativity. How cluttered your world must be!"
Hippies, soyboys, and valley girls practicing astrology with various 'good vibes' energy stones hardest hit.
ALL of this is stuff my Grandmother taught us from kitchen as she whipped up another batch of cookies to fuel the never empty cookie jar.
Make a list of chores...? keep your mind where your hands are.
The lists? A gratitude list will almost always adjust your attitude to the positive. If you live in the problem, the problem gets bigger, live in the solution and the solution prevails.
What to do? Do Gods will, not yours. What is that? Well if you're confused, eliminate all those things you know will not be Gods will.
This is all faith base. Just slight of hand to shade the atheists. All of this can be found in any/all of the worlds faiths.
Our family unit has been so decimated by govt intrusion, we have lost our oral history handed down from grandparents.
This is an evergreen topic that applies to numerous fields, but is hard to do anything about it. IMO this follows from how heavily negative emotions trouble and transform people, including fear, anxiety, and disgust.
Examples: People have a negativity bias, whereby market researchers apply a 3x multiplier to negative news versus positive news. Crisis managers emphasize the need to respond rapidly and effectively to maintain credibility -- take a little pain now to avoid a lot of pain later. Investing research has found that people fear small losses more than they enjoy large gains, and thereby often earn lower returns than they could have achieved. Finally, the DEI culture fixated on "unconscious bias training" 5-15 years ago before accepting that these were not unconscious (i.e., implicit), and that 1-2 hour corporate training sessions doesn't do much against millions of years of evolution and decades of direct negative experience with other groups.
The world's COVID response showed that many people in power did exactly the wrong thing in an effort to rapidly and easily "get past" the crisis -- then likely prolonged bad policies as the later phases hit. Lockdowns and masks forever! Avoidance now led to more avoidance and bigger problems.
Inborn biases are powerful and often unchangeable. Self-protection requires keen attention to external negatives, so negative avoidance is a powerful (blind) guide to action.
Zuleika was not strictly beautiful. Her eyes were a trifle large, and their lashes longer than they need have been. An anarchy of small curls were her chevelure, a dark upland of misrule, every hair asserting its rights over a not discreditable brow. For the rest, her features were not at all original. They seemed to have been derived rather from a gallimaufry of familiar models. From Madame la Marquise de Saint-Ouen came the shapely tilt of the nose. The mouth was a mere replica of Cupid's bow, lacquered scarlet and strung with the littlest pearls. No apple tree, no wall of peaches, had not been robbed, nor any Tyrian rose-garden, for the glory of Miss Dobson's cheeks. Her neck was imitation-marble. Her hands and feet were of very mean proportions. She had no waist to speak of.
Zuleika Dobson, Max Beerbohm
is this like?
The 1st thing to do, when you're in a hole.. Is to STOP DIGGING?
It's interesting, but I usually find that the real negative things are unfixable. Don't marry that person because she is caustic and mean.
Of course you don't repeat the things that are completely optional and didn't work.
See also, "The Power of Negative Thinking" by Bob Knight.
(TL/DR avoid mistakes, win games.)
I like this post.
Anything, when written down, gives perspective.
Perspective is key.
Thank you for this reminder.
"In the dime stores and bus stations
People talk of situations
Read books, repeat quotations
Draw conclusions on the wall
Some speak of the future
My love she speaks softly
She knows there’s no success like failure
And that failure’s no success at all"
My friend and I would always say "Let's not and say we did" back in pre-teen days. Thanks for that memory reinstall!
AA: "Better than nothing is a high standard."
*******************
I dunno. When I was working in a jewelry store after school in my teens, a 50'ish ad guy from our local newspaper would come in every few weeks to drum up some business.
A young and saucy salesperson in the store would always greet him with, "Ed! Great to see you! How's the wife?"
Ed would pause for a few seconds before replying: "Oh, better than nothing, I guess."
Via Negativa is the mindset engineers use when trying to figure out why something failed. You start by assuming nothing and go thru eliminating one cause after another until coming to that which is focked up.
If your vacation sucked, don't automatically assume it was because Aunt Eloise got drunk, called your MAGA friend a Nazi, then pissed the bed that night.
That approach was what started the Reformation. Luther wanted the Papists to strip away the fear BS and simply follow Pauline scripture. What a fool….wait, wait the printing press changed everything.
His help was not exactly welcomed. But overnight adult literacy became mandatory to read the translated Bible. And that has made all the difference.
Pro athletes can remember in infinite detail the lost games, races, missed putts, dropped passes & failed extra points. The wins sometimes run together.
"Ed would pause for a few seconds before replying: "Oh, better than nothing, I guess.""
The problem with people who use the old cliché is that they undervalue nothing.
In my view it is better to be single than to be with just about anybody. It's a very high standard to beat nothing when you're talking about marriage. Ed is just a jerk. He's far worse than nothing. Who would want a husband who talks about you like that? Only someone desperately afraid of loneliness, which is to say somebody in no condition to contemplate marriage. First, learn to value living on your own. Certainly, don't be afraid of it. Some people never do.
I think you said something. It probably wasn't important. So, I'll just ignore you. h/t Andrea
"Poop on you." She hears what she wants to hear.
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
To fuck or not to fuck is the first choice.
Brooks assures us that following the negative way does not make you a "negative person."
I assume the difference is similar to the way we can use negative space in drawing or painting to define the positive space that is the actual subject of the artwork. That can often help more clearly define the positive space but it’s different than obsessing over the things that should recede into the negative space so that they compete with the subject.
This joke-parsing gets old quickly. Prof has postulated a backstory about people she couldn't possibly know, just to critique some silly banter about marriage.
“Who would want a husband who talks about you like that?“
Do you think she knows?
She Who Must Always Be Agreed With wrote:
"In my view it is better to be single than to be with just about anybody."
>>>Poor Meade. What a tightrope he must walk everyday.
>>> And, of course, everyone followed your advice you would all be Darwin Award winners and the Earth would be depopulated.
"" It's a very high standard to beat nothing when you're talking about marriage. Ed is just a jerk. He's far worse than nothing."
>>>You knew him? Or are you just clairvoyant?
"Who would want a husband who talks about you like that?"
>>>Mrs. Hennie Youngman, perhaps? "Take my wife......please!"
>>>Or Rodney Dangerfield's wife? "I have good looking kids. Thank goodness my wife cheats on me."
>>>You see, just like them, Ed was making a JOKE about being married.
"Only someone desperately afraid of loneliness, which is to say somebody in no condition to contemplate marriage."
>>>So it's bad to seek companionship if you're afraid of loneliness. When knew? And believe me, Ed didn't behave as if he was "desperately" afraid of loneliness. He was in fact a smart, witty and friendly fellow.
"First, learn to value living on your own. Certainly, don't be afraid of it. Some people never do."
>>>Sure. Ignore your biological clock. The joys of parenting and spoiling grandchildren.children? Fuggeddaboudit.
>>>Instead subject those innate human urges to your Unconquerable Will. Ask yourself: "What's posterity ever done for ME???
>>>Miss Ann, you need a new hashtag: #HumorlessScold
Hegel and the Art of Negation Negativity, Creativity and Contemporary Thought Andrew Hass robot audio book just uploaded on a channel I watch.
"For example, after a weekend at the beach with your family, you can probably list the irritations far more easily than the pleasant aspects,"
Wow, what a sucky person, or a sucky family, or maybe both.
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