programmed_for_pessimism Dafremen DISCLAIMER: This blather's ultimate message is that your fate is in your own hands and that you are a powerful force for the realization of your dreams. If you don't want to hear that, you may as well stop reading now. Well, cynicism and pessimism are here folks, and they aren't going away just yet. It's gotten to the point where people even use CHEERFUL people as an excuse to be sarcastic and bitchy. "Will you just LISTEN to her? What does SHE have to be so happy about?" "Honestly, that guy is so happy happy happy it makes me wanna puke!" How did it get this way? What happened to us? Have we always been this way? Are we really so addicted to misery, worry and negative feelings that we'll do anything we can to shoo good feelings away...or pass the negative ones on to others? Judging by the amount of smiling that goes on when someone gets hurt, you'd think they were getting a gift or something. Our favorite TV shows? Why the soaps where everyone is making everyone else miserable, of course! Or the action adventures where everyone's stealing and the good guys are shooting them and beating them up. Or the video shows where the guy gets nailed in the groin with a fastball. Or the Cop shows where everyone's life is more pathetic than ours. And ALWAYS, in ALL of these shows the clever sarcastic lines to pour salt in the guy's wounds. Hell he deserves it for being bad, or stupid or rich, and so his MISERY makes us smile...right? Damn! I sat down this morning and watched a little TV to try and see where this was coming from. Just the news gave me a clue. In fact, I watched a few shows after the news and I'll be damned if a pattern didn't emerge. Everyone on the TV was either talking about negative stuff, or doing negative stuff. The news was a friggin exercise in things to worry about or tragedies to smile about. It's really no wonder that they call the TV schedule, PROGRAMMING. That's what it's doing to us...all of us, it's programming us for pessimism and sadism. Here's a quick sample of ONE mornings news programming along with a quick summary of what it says: Top stories: - 4 Killed and Dozens Wounded in Israel (The world is a dangerous place full of misery and dangerous people. Support the War on Terror) - 11 Killed by car bomb in Kenya (Repeat message for effect. The world is a dangerous place full of misery and dangerous people. Support the War on Terror) - Terrorists fire two missles at jet leaving airport. (Repetition is the propagandist's tool. Hey...works for me. The world is a dangerous place full of misery and dangerous people. Support the War on Terror) - More evidence that Osama Bin Laden planned the 9-11 attacks (Ok, so hopefully by this one, we've gotten our daily dose of the message. Until lunch and the evening news. The world is a dangerous place full of misery and dangerous people. Support the War on Terror) - 2 Kids killed in illegal street races. Suspect at large. (Ok this is a social engineering message. Not necessarily a bad one, BUT there's still the message: The world is a dangerous place full of misery and reckless people. One of them's out there.) - Be careful during Christmas shopping, killer products are out there (Don't forget to do your XMas Shopping! Oh, but worry) - There are toys your child can choke on. (Buy toys for the kids.. Oh, but worry) - There are toys that can blow your child's eardrums out. (Buy toys for the kids. Oh, but worry.) - Cheap lights can catch your tree on fire. (Don't forget the tree. Buy more expensive products. Oh...and worry.) - Are the Osborns a staged reality show? (The poor schmucks got caught faking it. [Cue smirks and I told you soze.] Don't believe anything anyone says. Oh, but watch the Osborns.) - Pop singer divorcing wife. (Rich famous people are miserable. Serves them right for being successful! They're all fake anyhow. Doesn't your drab life seem better now? Divorce is acceptable and chic. Your favorite pop star is doing it.) - Backstreet Boys suing Zomba Recordings for promoting Nick Carter. (Rich famous people are miserable. Serves them right for being successful! They're all fake anyhow. Doesn't your drab life seem better now? Oh and don't get mad, don't get even...sue!) So on and so on. Jerry Springer, Rob Nelson. People who cheat on people and lie about it. People who cheat on the cheaters who cheated on them and lied about it. Gay Porn stars who cheat on married teenage lesbians. Misery misery and more human misery for us to suck up and soak up. Is it any WONDER that we lock our doors and ignore each other on the streets? Is it any WONDER that we suffer from this negative reaction syndrome? This disease that finds us tearing each other apart in a futile attempt to satisfy our endlessly empty self-esteems, to boost our overfed and underinflated egos? We want to feel better, but how CAN we? The negative feeds on itself, the pessimism by it's very definition cannot be hopeful, so WHERE is the hope for anything better? Who wants it when they can't even bring themselves to believe it's possible? I blathered a little something positive a few days back about anything being possible. It was promptly greeted with "F*** you!" F*** YOU! Can you believe it?! (Of course you can. I deserve it for playing a bad guy, for being an @-hole..hey, I can understand the feeling, but the REACTION? That's a result of programming.) I was told that I was a fool for saying that we can make our dreams come true. That's the sort of society we live in, that's whats in me, you, all of us and it's only growing larger and uglier with every show we watch and every sarcastic, cynical comment we make toward one another, every negative thought we spew or stew in for a half an hour at a time. Wow. Makes me wanna burn my TV set. Course then I'd miss the Osborns, couldn't have that. I need somehow to counteract this horribly negative blather with a few thoughts: 1. You CAN do anything you dream. The person who says it's not possible has never really tried. (Why would they try something that they feel isn't possible?) 2. A happy thought is like a magnet. It'll just about bring tears to your eyes how quickly it'll work for you. Ever since I have been taking_it_to_the_streets I have struck up conversations with people in the strangest places, and the result of my positive being has been amazing. People who I would have worried about kicking my ass and taking my (empty)wallet before, eagerly discuss philosophy and the condition of society with me. Positive-being works. Not just positive thinking, positive feeling too. Feel it and you're there, it's heaven baby! 3. YOU are the sole cause of your problems. We all tend to have bad things go wrong in our lives, and we all would like for it not to be our fault. Too bad. It wasn't fate, or bad luck, or the guy across the street, it was us. The minute we admit that, we're FREE. There's nothing to stop us, because all obstacles disappear. You can't change fate, you can't steer luck and you can't control the guy across the street, but you CAN change YOU. The only real obstacles are doubt and pessimism. 4. Feel GOOD! (I DON'T mean use and abuse someone's daughter either.) I mean just feel happy, be enthusiastic about being alive. You deserve it and it beats feeling bad, pissed or worried all of the time. You CAN do it. There ARE NO problems, and there are no obstacles that don't disappear when you change you by forcing yourself to feel good. We spend too much time letting the world around us be our excuse. I'm not to blame for my cynical response..that guy had it coming! I can't do THAT, I'm broke! My parents/wife/kids made me miserable. We are just too damned willing to walk around NOT doing things the right way and blaming it on everything around us. You can change that and if you stop letting the world around you program you to be a pessimist, it will come to you. You've gotta CARE enough about making your life better for it to happen. You've gotta care enough to stop living CARELESSLY and start living your life in a CARING manner. It'll all come to you, just feel like it's coming your way, and go for it baby! I guess the final word should probably go to young Nick, a 12 year old caller from El Cajon California who had this to say about Thanksgiving: "I'm thankful for peace. Peace in America. It's nice to be an American and be able to walk down the street all smiling and careless." 021130 ... . a lot of what you're saying is true, but you still have the same manner of overstating it, aggrandizing yourself, and being totally preachy in your demeanor. Furthermore, how many of us even feel like listening to you anymore? I can't tell you how many times I've gone to comment to someone about your stuff and they say "oh, I don't read his shit anymore" 021130 ... ??????? "I mean just feel happy, be enthusiastic about being alive." I'm enthusiastic about making fun of you. Contradicting bullshit makes me feel alive. Good enough? Now admittedly, the preceding quote is the only part of your poem-thing I read. See, I've read enough of your crap to know it's not worth reading. Anyway, you may take that as further indication of society's decay, but remember, we all have the right to stem the flow of misinformation into our consciousness. I consider your bullshit to be misinformation. 021130 ... Suicide Snowman christ... does anyone else feel like we're being preached to? Personally, I like to be happy as does most everyone else, but every now and then I need to wallow in my pessimism and pissed-offed-ness in order to function... 021130 ... Dafremen Hey programming is like that. Garbage in equals garbage out. Unfortunately, I'm tired of standing around in it. And YES I'm preaching it to the high heavens! I hope you folks know where the channel changer is on this thing. I'm not stopping. There's me and a handful of others against the rest of the world. No way. Keep doing what you're doing, I'll keep scooping handfuls of sand back in the bucket for every bucketful you dump out. It's the least I can do. And that makes ME feel good! (Glad I can be of service anonymous question mark person.) 021130 ... ??????? Anonymous question mark person is astounded at your delusion. As I see it, we're on a ship in a sea of delusion, and I'm baling water as you punch holes in the hull. It's all relative, Daffyman. 021130 ... Dafremen I guess the difference is that I learned how to tread water, learned that delusions and dreams are almost the same thing except that you're awake and can affect changes within the midst of a delusion. 021207 ... p2 c++: #include "pessimism.h"; java: import com.life.outlook.Pessimism; 021207 ... ????? But maybe the others on the ship aren't so buoyant. Tread water all you like. I'm going to try to pass out some life vests. (This analogy thing is fun). 021207 ... taojones Daff & ??????: brilliant minds, indeed; I've always enjoyed your respective works. Daff: clearly you are adept at expressing yourself, most especially through writing. What I think Anonymous here was getting at, originally (though with a more scabrous tone), was that you seem to get a bit lost somewhere between the technical proficiency of your editorialism and the preachiness of your self-awareness rants. I can dig it; sometimes when we feel THAT passionate about something, we tend to "aggrandize", as Anonymous so eloquently put it. when you do this, the effect is a bit disorienting, especially after having read some of your other work, which, by comparison, was far more tangible and literate. perhaps you could avoid unecessary confrontation with otherwise friendly blatherines by weeding out the blazing contradictions spawned by this near-manic enthusiasm... ...It makes ya sloppy, Daff! But yer still alright in my book.... 021210 ... taojones Daff & ??????: brilliant minds, indeed; I've always enjoyed your respective works. Daff: clearly you are adept at expressing yourself, most especially through writing. What I think Anonymous here was getting at, originally (though with a more scabrous tone), was that you seem to get a bit lost somewhere between the technical proficiency of your editorialism and the preachiness of your self-awareness rants. I can dig it; sometimes when we feel THAT passionate about something, we tend to "aggrandize", as Anonymous so eloquently put it. when you do this, the effect is a bit disorienting, especially after having read some of your other work, which, by comparison, was far more tangible and literate. perhaps you could avoid unecessary confrontation with otherwise friendly blatherines by weeding out the blazing contradictions spawned by this near-manic enthusiasm... ...It makes ya sloppy, Daff! But yer still alright in my book.... 021210 ... taojones Daff & ??????: brilliant minds, indeed; I've always enjoyed your respective works. Daff: clearly you are adept at expressing yourself, most especially through writing. What I think Anonymous here was getting at, originally (though with a more scabrous tone), was that you seem to get a bit lost somewhere between the technical proficiency of your editorialism and the preachiness of your self-awareness rants. I can dig it; sometimes when we feel THAT passionate about something, we tend to "aggrandize", as Anonymous so eloquently put it. when you do this, the effect is a bit disorienting, especially after having read some of your other work, which, by comparison, was far more tangible and literate. perhaps you could avoid unecessary confrontation with otherwise friendly blatherines by weeding out the blazing contradictions spawned by this near-manic enthusiasm... ...It makes ya sloppy, Daff! But yer still alright in my book.... 021210 ... Dafremen Thanks for your candor, it was appreciated. Also, thanks for seeing through to the one word that describes my reason for writing the way I do sometimes..I am PASSIONATE. I am passionate about EVERYTHING I believe in, never halfway...I FEEL what I believe in. Believe it or not, I go into speech mode at home sometimes too. Scares my wife at occasionally, she thinks I'm mad and yelling, but I'm not, I just BELIEVE so strongly in some of the things that I say that it comes out that way. I can give a hell of a speech, but only if I BELIEVE in what I'm speaking about. I'm also a hell of a salesman..but only if I BELIEVE in the product that I'm selling. There's a common thread, a common motivation between the things I can speak, sell and believe in: a need to help others. I have a few DEAR DEAR friends who have looked past the "aggrandizing" opinionated attitude just long enough to hear the message and take it to heart. They soon found their situations improved. It wasn't long before I found these same dear ones coming back again and again for advice. They weren't looking for a shoulder to cry on or someone to listen to them (I'm not a great listener, although I'm a decent shoulder), they were looking for solutions that would FIX their problems. That's what I have done throughout my life and career. I've solved problems (I'm a troubleshooter by trade.) In return, these people have given me what I need: a chance to help and to have someone believe that I truly want the best for them. It has been very rewarding, for all parties involved. I'm not out to be Jesus, I'm out to be Handy Smurf. I'm not a preacher, I'm not a wannabe super star, I'm the guy out in the audience who is SCREAMING "DON'T OPEN THE CLOSET!!! THE BAD GUY'S IN THERE" I feel your predicaments, your pains are very tangible to me and I hate watching us all bumping into the same walls over and over again when there ARE answers. I'm not the preacher, I'm the guy in the audience screaming "Hallelujah!" While the preacher's counting his money and banging his secretary, I'm out on the street, looking out for my brother and trying to help him through this crazy life the only way I know how...passionately. Thanks again for the criticism, it was taken the way it was given (Very well.) Please email me with some suggestions on improving the readability of the things I write. I'm always interested in suggestions for more effectively channeling my passion. Your ideas would be greatly appreciated...I mean that. 021210 ... unhinged . 050731 ... daf Missed u do0d. 050731 ... akuma aoi This isn't directed at you, daffy, but as for me, i'm still looking forward to getting some form of melanoma of the sphincter from the sheer volume of sunshine people have tried to jam up my ass when the reality that i supposedly need such a dose of frequently involves having to decide which flavor of feces is more palatable 050801 ... dafremen It would've been nice if more people had read the disclaimer.. : ) Can't steer the stream.. 080426 ... epitome of incomprehensibility "...I'm out to be Handy Smurf. I'm not a preacher, I'm not a wannabe super star, I'm the guy out in the audience who is SCREAMING 'DON'T OPEN THE CLOSET!!! THE BAD GUY'S IN THERE'" ... Quality of writing? Not bad. I think the above quote is funny and to the point. Just wanted to tell you that. I don't think you're one of those people who's trying to stuff happiness "up our asses" as someone rather amusingly wrote. There can be a meanness in that: going around with a big grin just to annoy others who aren't as cheerful at the moment. No... I don't think that represents this blathe at all... However, some people obviously took this as an overdose of well-wishing; people are contrary, or at least I am, so yelling "BE HAPPY!" at people might have the opposite effect. Subtlety, humour (as in the above quote) might have the more desirable effect. Eh. Now I sound "preachy" myself. Be happy, damn it, be happy!!! Aren't you happy yet? Come on, I wanna see a smile. Yes, a smile. Just one, think you can manage that??? SMILE! LIFE IS GOOD! GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Sorry. :) 080426 ... dafremen But it IS so good..it REALLY is. It's the desperate souls who don't see that who are making everything seem so fucked up these days. I guess perceived desperate times call for desperate measures! Heave ballast! Toss the optimism overboard! 080427 ... e_o_i But the people who mess up this world aren't necessarily doing so for desperate purposes--they're not always driven by a sense of hopelessness, that is--sometimes they're simply misguided, or selfish, or actually think they're doing something good. The war in Iraq, for example... though one of its selling points was fear, I don't think that was the original impetus for the invasion. One of the above reasons would fit in better. (or greed, status...?) I'm not arguing with your view that optimism is well, good, and has been underrated; but people's motivations are complicated and it's not always the desperate ones who wreak havoc. 080427 ... dafremen Selfishness is born of fear, you know. Fear of loss of control, fear of poverty, fear of being seen as unworthy in society. Fear of dying without leaving behind some mighty monument to a puny existence. It's all desperation born of insecure minds. 080428 ... blech Blah, blah, blah. More preaching from that guy. 080428 ... Mahm No children, eh, Dafreman? If you ever have a child, watch them during "selfish" moments. Fear is only one root. Sometimes, the source of selfishness is stupidity, or even boredom. Gotta watch out for over-reducing! 080428 ... dafremen 4 kids...youngest is 14. The rest are grown up with kids of their own. The selfish tendency is the tendency to exert control. Some kids don't want a thing until they see that someone else wants it. Some kids just have to assure themselves that they have control over that aspect of their lives if no other. I've been watching pretty carefully. Keep em coming though. I'd be curious to hear about a negative human reaction that isn't based in fear. 080428 ... And So On Here are some negative human reactions not based in fear: Distaste Annoyance Physical Pain Weariness 080428 what's it to you? who go blather from