Negativity

Over the past year I’ve made a deal with myself that I’d publish one of these little musings every week. I’ve made good on that promise up until two weeks ago. I was about to publish that piece a few Fridays back when it struck me that what I’d been writing had started to severely slip into darkness.

The original point of this little page was to present the writings that I’ve done that I feel may have some value to others. I write to make sense of the world. It’s a vast, weird, and confusing place, and it only seems to be getting more that way the further along we go. The reason I’ve always taken to writing is that it gave me a tangible place to put my thoughts so that I could make an accurate as possible understanding of society and my place in it.

Often I’ll write a piece and upon reading it find a number of flaws within my own logic. This means that the process is working. That’s the beauty of this whole project, and the practice of journaling in general. It gives one the opportunity to really examine what they’re thinking. Frequently what we ‘think we think’ and what we ‘actually think’ are quite different. Putting thoughts into a cohesive piece that can be properly scrutinized has been of immense benefit to me.

As I was about to publish two weeks ago I noticed that I’d taken a path in my writings that was a bit too negative and nihilistic. This doesn’t mean that I went through my folder of such writings and did a mass deletion. Rather it seemed most wise to write about it, and to take a few weeks off of the publishing to really sit with this discovery. In that time I read a few of the published pieces as well as some of those that are in the queue to be published. Though they were all quite dire, they didn’t misrepresent my thoughts about the issues that I was covering.

This is what I suppose to be my biggest revelation thus far with the current project of publishing over the past year. I write about the issues of the society as I see them. Understanding those issues and making sense of them so that I can function in society without being overwhelmed is why I write about them. My default view of the human experience and the planet on which that experience takes place is quite positive. The beauty of the natural world is something that will never cease to be awe-inspiring to me, and the love and compassion that our species is capable of has provided me the strength to believe in a fruitful future.

However, I find it difficult to write about such things. At times in my past I’d take my creative endeavors and put them through an audience filter. The opinion of those reading what I was writing or listening to the music I was making was of paramount importance to me. I wanted my thoughts to be well-received. I wanted my ego to be coddled and feel secure. The writing practice of this year has been a welcome departure from that mentality.

My goal here isn’t to bum people out, nor is my goal to be a cheerleader for a society that seems to have many issues. Should you prefer an echo-chamber where only your preexisting ideas are reinforced then this won’t be a great resource for you. Should something overly positive ever come flowing through my mind and onto the page then it’ll be given the same shot at making the published site as the rest. However, I’ve decided that I won’t be changing my writing style in an attempt to appear more positive.

The reality is that I am positive. The things that I struggle with in life I feel are real issues that should make me feel uneasy. It would be great to ignore all the lingering issues with our world and society. Just go along as if I were twelve-years-old again. Imagining the best of the people and their intentions. This isn’t feasible in my life, and I assume it is becoming harder and harder for a lot of other people too as we are faced with serious existential, humanitarian, and ecological challenges.

I feel that complacency isn’t an option for my generation and those that are coming after me. We have an uphill battle if we want to preserve the planet, some form of democratic rule, and common decency. If my writing appears negative to you then I won’t disagree with you. It is negative because it is pointing out the areas of our society that need the most work. It is my belief that these blindspots need a spotlight shone on them. While my readership is quite low, I still feel it my responsibility to continue to try to bring the world’s issues – as far as I see them anyway – to light.

I was listening to a live recording of an obscure singer-songwriter the other day and he made the point I’m trying to make here quite well. He had just released a new album and one of his fans came up to him after a show and asked if he was alright. The album was a bit darker than his usual stuff, but the comment caught him off guard. He then talked about how his songs weren’t autobiographical and were just stories. Then he made a joke about how boring his life actually is. At one point saying that if he were to only write about his life it would be something like, ‘Dave came over today, we had some coffee, it was a nice time.’ His point being that often the art we use to express ourselves only points to topics or ideas we’d like to explore, and not an all-encompassing worldview.

This is a space where that negativity escapes my mind and lives on the page. It is nice not having it only reside in my mind. Not only do I get the opportunity to actually read the flaws in my thinking and adjust accordingly, but I also get the satisfaction of knowing I’m at least trying to do something to make this existence a bit better. I’ve no delusions of grandeur with my writing, but it does seem to matter to a few people. So to those people, I assure you that I’m doing great. The negativity released here is allowing me to be more positive in the rest of my life. I just hope I don’t bum you out too hard.

I appreciate your attention and hope you’ve found value in this.
Thanks for reading and please take care of each other.