This post comes after three months of laziness...:) but I figured that,when mr.inspiration himself has decided to reconsider his decision to stop blogging,I should save my blog from dying, for what its worth.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For Hope
Was watching a movie on Hallmark yesterday (they show some good stuff) in which the main character is dying and the family is rallying around in typical american style...all the lost love and time being made up for and stuff. They are all being cheerful "for her" when one character says something about "optimism spilling over to denial". That is what triggered off this post.
Optimism and denial- where do we draw the line?
To me they form a continuum from one end rooted in reality to another where reality fades away slowly. Optimism is healthy only until one is in touch with reality. So why does denial happen? Often we find that denial is more comforting than reality. Of course, it shields us from the "harsh" reality, to use a cliche. However, isnt it only a temporary solution? Denial just stuffs all the difficult emotions into this bag at the bottom of memory and this bag keeps growing with every uneasy memory.
So if there comes one day when the bag cant take any more where do we go?
This brings me to one more question which has been doing the rounds in my thought process for sometime now. Why do we not want to face "sad" feelings? We have been so conditioned to believe that one set of feelings are good and happy so anything that does not fulfill in this definition is the opposite...Well so be it. So why are unhappy emotions termed bad? Will denial happen if we accepted that both are happy and sad are part of the deal?
The other face of denial is hope.
"Hope holds up the world" goes a very old and oft-quoted hindi idiom. Here again, isnt hoping for the impossible also a form of denial?
Well this post is far from complete but I find myself rather inarticualte and rusty at this point in time. Hopefully the following posts will better put out what I am trying to say. (yes m. that means I have intentions of continuing this thing..:))
4 comments:
lol... welcome back! :d
just to fish out a point at random.. sadness can be immensely creative. but in a consumerist culture, since sadness is also very uncomfortable, its not acceptable - being sad is just not on. its idiotic and unrealistic, but there it is...
It is indeed interesting to note one side of an issue picked and prefered over the other...
I remember once attending a discourse by some saint/monk/preacher where he went on to say that "Anger is bad" and everyone nodded their heads. I asked him "Why?" and he just kept repeating what he said "Because it is bad. Because you don't like it when someone is angry, do you?" and the like... Really didn't help me...
I suppose we are always tutored to pick one over the other. Reminds me so much of the Taoist verse which goes on to say that we know beauty only because we know ugliness...
So I suppose we know joy only after we recognise sorrow and in denying sorrow we think we find happiness...
Why do we not want to face sadness and other "negative" emotions?
Hmmm. Because we aren't taught to deal with these things (knowing how to get out of them is not dealing with them). Our sense of security wants us to be in a state of least disturbance and when there is a sense of want (which helps us define our sense of security and surity) there would always be imbalance and hence proclivity towards disturbance. I want this and today I haven't got it, hence I am disappointed and depressed. Our entire rearing process is towards "securing" our lives... is it not?
Its a pity aint it when many things in life are judged on a relative scale. Beautiful and ugliness, rich and poor, sad and happy, etc. A friend of mine and myself were discussing why moody people are often looked at with suspicion or why others always try to cheer them up. We used to think a moody person has the best of both worlds, he can be down in the dumps and be on top of the world at the same time. Me, I think sadness, depression, anger, pressure works for me, not that Im not a jovial fellow. Often, I have used them to my advantage. I write better when im sad and depressed, I work harder when Im under pressure and I play harder when Im angry. If only people can harness these feelings and not disregard them as something unwholesome. Why should something as unique as a persons reaction to a situation be reined in and stereotypical? Why should there be only kodak moments and no leave-me-alone moments in life?
@m thank you. lets see how "un-lazy"(ok i forgot the word) i am this time..:)
@eroteme i guess u r right abt the making life secure part. I guess its the human way of reacting to evolution.
@ss "Why should there be only kodak moments and no leave-me-alone moments in life?"
I like how you put it...that line kinda summed it all up.
Post a Comment