Negativism

You may have noticed something about my posts: many of them, even if they have a generally positive tone, include at least a few negative asides or parenthetical statements.

In my previous post about my fifth grade teacher, for example, I make a passing reference to how poorly my other teachers thought of me, because of my grades and my general family reputation.

Yes, I am a very negative person. I didn't become persuaded of this myself until I was about fifty years old, even though people had been telling me so since high school.

Up until that point, I thought to myself, 'Well, hell, yes, I'm negative. You treat me like I'm a pariah because I'm smarter than you, or because I didn't come from as good a family as yours, or because I'm clumsy and near-sighted, or because you think I'm goofy-looking. What am I supposed to do, motherfuckers, smile and pretend I like being treated this way?'

Possibly an early
ancestor. Maybe I
should use this as
my Facebook profile
picture.

(Oh, and thank you, Johnny Hart, for introducing a clumsy, near-sighted caveman in "BC" and naming him 'Clumsy Carp.' Yeah, thanks a fucking lot.)

Plus, negativism was consistent with the way both my parents viewed the world, especially my mother. I picked up a lot of it from them.

Eventually, late in life, I came to see that way of thinking as just a dead end.  I wasn't wrong, but carrying all that negative energy poisoned me nonetheless, and made an unpleasant situation even worse.

But after an entire life of negativism, getting rid of it has been difficult. It's habitual with me.

When I read other people's posts that are continually cheery and positive, I find myself thinking, 'WTF is the matter with you? You sound like Pollyanna.'

Yet one of the most persistently positive people I know was one of the last victims of childhood polio in this country. She spent most of her life on crutches, and now, in her sixties, is in a wheelchair. She has far more reason to be negative than I do. But she stays more positive and upbeat than I ever am.