I got thru half this post and it started to bore the **** out of me. I'm
sure there is some real theme behind it regarding being truly happy
vs.wearing a mask and pretending, but my attention span only lasts so
long.
"William Blake Jr." <ibshambat@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:1132854536.903205.111490@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> The New Age failed for this reason: that the ideology of positivity was
>
> not based on compassion or goodwill. Rather it provided a way to bully
> people for supposedly being negative, without either understanding the
> reasons for that negativity or a compassionate and benevolent approach
> to guide them toward genuine happiness. Maybe these people had tried
> compassion when they were younger, and it did not work for them; but
> what was created instead was something entirely malignant: A coercion
> toward false positivity, without it having at its core genuine
> goodwill, resulting in running roughshod over people's emotions: A
> basic callousness and deliberate blindness that made it the worst sin
> to be sincere. These people were bullies, who believed that because
> they had found a way to be positive - which in many cases was not true
> positivity (which always presupposes goodwill) but rather simply a way
> to feel good while doing nothing good - everyone else had to become
> falsely positive also. Which is about as false and ignorant and
> ultimately negative as it gets.
>
> The New Age mindset meant that no matter how badly a person was
> hurting, he had to put on a happy mask in order to avert being seen as
> negative. Which is not much different from the South and Midwest
> demanding that people pretend to be happy when they are in fact utterly
>
> wretched, in order to avert being seen as a loser or as a mess. It was
> a way to bully people; a way to mistreat people; a way to shove under
> them false happiness, which is as removed from true happiness as is the
>
> east from the west. False happiness is a decoy; true happiness is true.
>
> And in my experience, it can only come with genuine goodwill. Which was
>
> not found in either New Age "empowerment ideology" or in the Southern
> and Midwestern societies that demand a pretense of positivity that
> prevents people from addressing the wrong that is done to them and thus
>
> from either finding happiness for themselves or empowering it for
> others.
>
> Here is someone who is genuinely positive: Patch Adams. This person is
> full of compassion and genuine love of mankind. When this guy puts on a
>
> clown costume and goes to a place like Peru to cheer up the people
> living in darkness, everyone loves him. It's not because he is a "team
> player with positive attitude" or any other Ronald McDonald fiction.
> Nor is it because he, like many people, wears a plastic smile while
> carrying a dagger behind his back. It is because he is genuinely
> good-hearted and has the courage to make this goodness of heart a way
> of reaching the hearts of others and guide them toward happiness that
> is real - that has at its core goodwill and kindness and caring and
> compassion, and that as such has a chance of making possible truly
> positive existence.
>
> But coercion toward positivity without genuine compassion and goodwill
> is a lie catering to basic cruelty. It is a way to run roughshod over
> people's emotions and minds and force down their throats a mindset that
>
> entirely fails to take into account how they actually feel. I'd rather
> be surrounded by people who are negative but sincere than have in my
> life the happy-faced bullies and liars and hypocrites who want to deny
> the next person the right to their feelings, the right to their
> thoughts, the right to addressing the wrongs in their lives and their
> communities, and the right to the search and experience and
> intellectual understanding that actually has a chance of creating true
> happiness - as well as compassion and goodwill toward others that are
> its proof.
>
> Positive - truly positive - means also compassionate and of goodwill;
> and that simply was not found in the bullies who would attack people
> for being in pain or for assaying the world from a more balanced
> perspective. Any more than it is found in Midwest, where the
> misconstrued concept of personal responsibility without the wisdom and
> knowledge and compassion that are its prerequisite prevents people from
>
> addressing the problems they face and the wrong that gets committed
> against them. Any more than it is found in the South, where the
> misconstrued concept of righteousness without the basic honesty that is
>
> its prerequisite leads everyone to shove wrongs under the rug or treat
> them as their private shame. Happiness does not come from coercion
> toward false positivity; it comes from finding a place toward genuine
> goodwill, compassion and understanding. And that is not something that
> comes from coercion. That is something that comes from compassion.
>
> Now I am all for people having true happiness. But bullying is not the
> way to get there, nor is lack of memory as to the reason for one's own
> rebellion in one's youth, nor is cruelty and lack of compassion, nor is
>
> hypocrisy that would deny the younger people the same thing that one
> allowed to himself when he was that age. Patch Adams, on the other
> hand, is someone who could teach a lot - both to the "negative" people
> that the supposed New Agers were attacking and to the fake-positive
> liars and hypocrites that did the attack. It's only when positive
> outlook embodies genuine goodwill and heart and compassion that it can
> remotely be credible or even rightful. And that does not mean being "a
> team player with positive attitude." That means actual goodness,
> however it may be found, and the yearning that comes from that goodness
>
> to do genuine good for the next person and for mankind.
>
> Ilya Shambat.
>
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