Positivity

[Baron von Lotsov]

Ah but the trouble is that this empathy is destructive to them. They want to hear it is not their fault, and in a bit of experimentation, I try and pursue a positive line of thinking, where one sees if there are improvements that can be made. A lot start to get annoyed, and it is as if it hurts their brain to click into this mindset. They have learnt the wrong solution, which is bury yourself under a rock.



The same thing went for a group who were planning to open a business. They had made a lot of mistakes, but they were all agreed it was the landlord's fault for not being considerate enough. Around them there were those who were giving "helpful advice", but in actual fact it was advice that would put them out of business. I came along and disagreed with a lot of it, but gave my reasons. In times of trouble you need to brutally honest and face the situation you are in. They could not do it and the inevitable happened.



Anyhow it is incredible what you can achieve even in the most dire conditions. Many who have climbed out of a deep hole have gone on to beat the incumbents with all their advantages to hand. You often find justice prevails eventually. One day the people fiddling you will see their fortunes reversed. But if you give up then you do not stand a chance.

[Bright Young Thing]

Taking the basic element of your opening post, that a positive attitude is better, I completely agree with you.



I think as a society we now suffer from 'keeping up with the Joneses-itis' which is unhealthy and breeds negativity. Instead of seeing what we can't do or have, we should see what we can do and have. It's a lesson I've personally learnt over the last year (those members who know me best know why) and I can honestly say it has helped me massively. I'm still not money rich, I'm a long way off where I want to be career wise, but I'm taking positive steps and mentally feeling brighter, which has in turn improved my physical health - I sleep better, I've lost weight and I have more energy.



The trouble is though, as a country we are not in a good place. We have unemployment, we have zero hours contracts, we have a welfare system which does not work, we have huge use of food banks and we have rogue landlords and people who hit the worst off hard (Wonga type loans etc). While I have been able to 'think positive' I can see why many can't, and for that reason we need to have empathy and understanding to those who cannot.

[Baron von Lotsov]

Can you define what you mean by creation please?

Yes indeed.



We were talking about the unemployed a while back.



Two stances can be taken. One is reporting on how absolutely awful it is down at the dole office and the other is finding solutions they can use to better their circumstances. One type of thinking is an attempt to make things better where the other is generally endless mush, much like the News reports. The News never takes the positivist view. I do though and I readily admit I'm odd. In other countries though it is different. You might like to read the history of the invention of the jet engine. That serves as a classic example of how stupid and messed up this country is, where over in America they did not think at all like we did and started to think creatively. They looked at public transport and saw opportunity. They wasted no time in grabbing it, and the result was Boeing. That was something they built. It's still around today.

[papasmurf]

The is not a joke thread.



Can we drag ourselves away from the dumbing down machine for a while?

Can you define what you mean by creation please?

[Baron von Lotsov]

The is not a joke thread.



Can we drag ourselves away from the dumbing down machine for a while?

[Borg Refinery]

Personally I think Uncle Mort and Victor Meldrew were far too cheerful.

 ::  ::  :-P

[papasmurf]

Personally I think Uncle Mort and Victor Meldrew were far too cheerful.

[Baron von Lotsov]

This thread hopes to raise a more philosophical point rather than a religious one, because it is based in logic and logic is a branch of philosophy.



The problem as I see it is to do with real time mental activity. What goes through our brain throughout the day, and what kind of thinking do we do? Clearly this differs from person to person, and according to the time of day and what is going on in the environment, but taking the mind on its most basic level of interaction with the environment to alter the human condition, there are two modes of thought. One mode is constructive in that the mind is solving problems, making conditions better, helping others to achieve likewise and all of the thinking that goes into creating things. Then there is everything which is not this category. This is the useless thinking or it is the repeating of all the bad things so and so has done to me, or it is working out how to defeat someone, or make them unhappy to get them back for something else and all of that. They are all the actions that in the long-term have not benefited anyone and are really a waste of one's life. Take a bit of nasty scandal for example. See how it is told and retold hundreds or thousands of times, and if it is Twitter it could be repeated millions of times. So one stupid useless thought has propagated across millions of minds.



So perhaps we could establish a  kind of metric of sorts where we look at people and see what proportion of their brain time is preoccupied with creation against waste and counterproductive activities when viewed as a whole, i.e. sum of all observable effects. Clearly the society which is mostly preoccupied with creation is going to be the one that survives and prospers. Try talking to people from different counties and see if you can see any differences here and then look at some objective metric like GDP growth or crime rate or unemployment rate, and I think you'll find a strong correlation.



Perhaps then, all that we need to do is consciously alter our own policy on what we think about and communicate to others to guard against what is useless, or destructive. even if one is talking about a problem, a thought about a solution is better than a thought about how awful it is going to be, and the latter is likely to be a self fulfilling prophecy anyway.



Personally I have known some very messed up people, and the thing that ties them all together is this 99% negative vs 1% positive in anything they say or think, and that is on a cheerful day. I've noticed it on forums as well. I try and balance bad news with positive news, but I see some people pour scorn on what is undoubtedly a positive development. I see this as a possible indicator they are on the first rung of the ladder that leads to the loony bin. I'm not trying to be offensive; I mean it seriously. I know one guy who has just recently been admitted. The thing is the madness has a tendency to spread like disease owing to the normal desire of people to fit in with others.