The Beauty of Non-Positive Thinking
By: Charz
Tags: Barbara Ehrenreich, David Bowie, Gabriele Oettingen, Joy Division, Model, Murphy's Law, Naysayer, Nega, Negativ Nein, Negative Thinking, NEGATIVISM, Non-Positive Thinking, Nozomu Itoshiki, Oliver Burkeman, Paul Weller, Pessimismus, Positive thinking, Psychic Warfare, Rui Kurihara, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Social Psychology, Stoicism, The Smiths, Tokyo
Category: Codex, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
Yomiuri Shimbun : First of all, I’d like to ask you a direct question. Are you really negative [about everything]?
Rui Kurihara : I’ve never said before that I’m negative.
Q: Whoa! That answer could rock the very foundation of this interview.
A: I’m neither negative nor positive. But recently, I’ve come to dislike the word “positive.”
Q: Why on earth would you say that?
A: I feel like being positive is an escape from reality. We have to recognize and accept bad situations, don’t we?
Q: You’re a humble person, aren’t you?
A: No, no. I’m cautious, or perhaps I should say I try hard not to disturb others.
Q: What do you do in your free time?
A: I always stay at home.
Not your average naysayer / Kurihara takes ‘negative’ to new level, Yomiuri Shimbun, Dec. 7, 2012
ILLUSIONS AND THREAT OF POSITIVE THINKING
According to research by the psychologist Gabriele Oettingen and her colleagues, visualizing a successful outcome, under certain conditions, can make people less likely to achieve it.
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Ancient philosophers and spiritual teachers understood the need to balance the positive with the negative, optimism with pessimism, a striving for success and security with an openness to failure and uncertainty. The Stoics recommended “the premeditation of evils,” or deliberately visualizing the worst-case scenario.
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From this perspective, the relentless cheer of positive thinking begins to seem less like an expression of joy and more like a stressful effort to stamp out any trace of negativity….A positive thinker can never relax, lest an awareness of sadness or failure creep in.
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The social critic Barbara Ehrenreich has persuasively argued that the all-positive approach, with its rejection of the possibility of failure, helped bring on our present financial crises.
by Oliver Burkeman, author of the book “The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking.”
The Power of Negative Thinking, NYT, August 4, 2012
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