Just be positive

Visions of the Rewilding Renaissance Grief & Praise
#11

For me, It’s not so much about identifying with victimhood. It’s about fearlessly acknowledging when myself and alot of the people and things I care about are victims of some sort or another… an acknowledgement that you seem to have made, too.

What I think is important is to make sure that you’re grieving/acting on your terms rather than on Civ’s terms.

And I think this is kinda like the difference between concentrating on the internally stagnating feeling that you will be owed something for your attempts at positive thinking/behavior, as opposed to making the more outwardly motivating and angering acknowledgements that we’re all currently having things being taken away, regardless of (and sometimes because of) who we “try to be”.

I don’t think you have to “wear” victimization as an identity in order to keep those emotions alive, you just have to avoid philosophies that encourage repression of those feelings.

#12

William ~ Thanks for sharing the thought "grief turns stone-like unless you keep it liquid… " This is really helpful to me.

#13

My older and younger brothers have started taking this view point also. Whenever anyone gets even a little mad, they say something along the lines of “Please dont be negative around me” or “You dont have to be angry”. That closely resembles shit. One gets it from Gandhi, the other from the Dalai Lama. The wierd part: my older bro has feelings closely resembling rewilding. He has gone from closely identifying with shinto to closely identifying with buddhism. Pisses me off on numerous occations, though ai get along with him otherwise. (both of them also continuously preach nonviolence, to my constant frustration)

#14

I’m really appreciating this thread. Thanks, everyone. I’ve had frustrating conversations with Buddhists before, too.

#15

yup, my family thinks of me as the “negative” one as well and my mom really likes to point out when i’m being “aggressive” and “angry”. my older brother also has a lot of rewilding ideas and feelings, but i see him getting sucked into the self riotous pacifist attitude that a lot of new age/Buddhists seem to have. i had a conversation with him (actually during our thanksgiving family dinner) where he tried to convince me that anger was a “disease”. i just feel like if they actually thought about what they were saying… augh. it’s really frustrating sometimes.

#16

[quote=“Urban Scout, post:5, topic:1217”]Hey Thunder Thighs,

That’s a really sad story. I’m so sorry about that.

If you do decide to puke on someone, please video tape it and put it on youtube. Maybe you’ll start a movement. ;)[/quote]

yeah, i’ve actually thought about doing that, except doing it as a form of protest. you know how they have “die-ins”? well i think it would be tight to have “barf-ins”. or it could be done on bikes, like critical mass, except call it “critical barf” or something. i don’t know how i would go about organizing something like that though…

Participatory Performance Art
#17

Awesome idea! ;D ;D Some folks did just that in NYC. . . to protest the obscenity of this culture of consumption. After seeing that, I got kinda excited about staging some sort of participatory performance art type thing myself. So I saved this article about how to do it yourself–but regretfully no credits! Sounds like it came from the same artists who put on the vomitorium. Then I kinda forgot about the idea.

OK, this veers waaaay off topic so I decided this little nugget of the conversation deserves its own thread and moved the article here.

#18

I’m always being called a pessimist by my friends. As if I should blindly follow our benevolent ruler and he will save us in return for our/my loyalty. That I need to stand strong in the face of an adverse situation and be positive and keep working hard to be the best wage-slave I can be.
And it’s fucking bullshit and theres nothing that pisses me off more. I am a realist in most senses not including my idealisms of the post-apocalypse. I realize what state we are win and I see the resounding flaws of our systems.
I think positivity is a good thing but not all inclusive positivity that you build up more-less as a defense against all bad things. We as a community should exchange as much positive energy as possible. But being positive at all costs, and being positive while maintaining a totally realistic view point, are totally different things. I think positive energy is needed for any type of revolution or rewilding attempt.
I guess what I’m really trying to say is that positivity is good for certain things, but too often are we told to be positive about negative things and it only serves civilization to do such a thing. We’ve got the “blame the victim” idea embedded so deep into peoples psyches that they themselves, as victims, blame themselves. The victim itself is now trained to blame itself for all negative action brought towards it.
One thing I must say, the system of mind control these people are under was amazingly well constructed and is highly efficient and very hard to undo in most people.

#19
Buddhism is not what you think.. that is it's not WHAT you THINK. Buddhism cultivates states of attention and equilibrium not so different from a hunter's awareness.

I think you’ve made a good point here, mojomike. And as pointed out by Willem, I realize this isn’t the thread to be discussing this, but I haven’t seen a new one started yet. For those interested, I just wanted to say that Paul Rezendes talks a lot about the relationship between cultivating attention and the hunter’s awareness in his book The Wild Within.

Curt

#20

My family treats me the same way. While I always try to not direct my anger AT THEM, they seem to have a hard time distinguishing that from me trying to share with them my anger at the death machine. The anger and grief I feel make up a fundamental part of my core self, and frankly I have grown very tired of suppressing/hiding that part of myself because it bothers people. It’s like they just can’t handle anything intruding on their little happy-bubble they work so hard to maintain in their lives.

I also think it has to do with this cultures’ demonization of “negative” emotions like anger and grief, fueled by the dominant religions. It amounts to a philosophical version of a happy-pill, like soma. It reminds me of the movie Equilibrium, where in order to ensure “peace” and order, the government mandated a drug to suppress all human emotions. Feeling emotions constituted a “sense offense”, and completely unacceptable (punishable by death).

And considering just how much rage I feel, and just what level of violence I feel willing to do (whatever it takes to stop the mass murders, and the sterilization of the earth), the fact that I act as civil as I do often amounts to nothing short of a minor miracle. If people expect me to pretend like nothing’s happening - and even worse, to pretend like I DON’T CARE about what is happening - they can go f*ck off. I am only willing to go so far to respect their sensibilities. The fact that they require more only shows their own pathos, and how much they have been influenced by the pathos of this culture.

In other words, beyond a certain point, they have the problem, not me.

Jessica

#21

Anytime I feel cornered to feel a certain way, puking comes to mind, as well.

And while I don’t enjoy being asked to feel a certain way, equally, I work on everyday not to ask others to feel a certain way other than to empathize with how I feel, and if I can, I return the favor.

I just finished a short book on of my teacher friends had laying around and it was about a father and son in various concentration camps and mostly about the reactions others had to the camps.

While we may angry towards what happened, many felt Hitler was God’s instrument punishing the Jewish people. Many felt Hilter was a monster to be stopped. Many felt resigned to their fate and found happiness/sadness where they could. One thing the author didn’t do was project his own terror until the very end when he finally lost his father. And he never described how he thought others felt, he merely quoted those around him.

So while it may feel unfair to be pressured to behave a certain way, the pressure also gives an opportunity to see in ourselves how we have pressured others to feel a certain way: attempting to impart a sense of “Urgency” to become uncivilized in the unwilling comes to mind for me, as well as “frustration” with the lack of progress of the progressives of society, and even more damning getting people to “unlike” the benefits of civilization in pursuit of another dream…

Don’t ‘just’ be anything. That cuts you off from all the other experiences.

#22

Ha ha… yeah, I hear you there!

#23

I have personal reasons for hating buddhists. Here is my story: http://pennyscout.wordpress.com/2008/12/28/chicago/

#24

SNNiiiiFFFLe! That was soo sad.

#25

Wow, haven’t posted here in a long time. On to the topic.

I often come here in search of some acceptance as well as advice. To those of you who have expressed their frustration, i feel your “pain”. I don’t know much about buddhists, short of having accepted Zen as my spiritual path. But I would like to make 2 points here, one is, buddha never said to turn away from the world and desires and emotions etc. That would be ascetism, which is one of the reasons behind buddha search for truth (which resulted in him becoming a buddha of course). My culture is full of ascetics. Emotion is natural, anger, love, depression. All of that, the only way to deal with them is to remember that, that they are a part of nature, and should be allowed to run their course. Of course, it is natural to seek comfort in a time of sadness etc, thats all part of it.

Don’t cut yourself off from everything, everything is there for a reason. Simply realise what TRUE happiness entail, (i.e. not to be found in money or material goods etc). The buddha himself actually lived a comfortable life, a very meager normal life (c.f: the original defenition of epicureanism).

The problem is, as an epicurean, its frustrating, the world humans have created requires you to discard rage, and always smile, never let it out, always be agressive etc. We have all experianced how fake people are in the modern world.

Anyways, I’ll wrap this up b4 i ramble on.

-Tj

#26

Ai have started a thead on buddhism, to continue on with critisisms, & etc. - http://www.rewild.info/conversations/index.php?topic=1349.0

#27

Seems to me that, what happens alot in this culture of ours is that people find a thing (like being positive) that helps them deal with shit, and as soon as they see it works (helps) they think it therefore must help in every situation all of the time.

This seems to be true for many things. What follows then with this line of thinking is that because (insert belief) is at all times good, its (insert dualist thinking / opposite) must be at all times bad.

Everything has its place and value, and sometimes being positive helps the overall situation and sometimes it might lead to the false perception of it helping out in the situation and sometimes it doesnt do shit. or worse.

Hell we can be positive and fucking AnGRY can’t we? I can see the black hole that is our situation yet i’m positive in the things im trying to achieve amidst all the sadness and grief.

This positive thinking mantra falls in the same traps as every other dominant culture belief, in that it identifies something as evil and then resolves to become its antitheses and thus to become “good” “righteous” etc.

So uhmm be positive when you are positive, be wicked mad when you are wicked mad. Stop thinking on how you should feel, instead explore how you DO feel. Feel bad? explore that shit, you know it will change right? life aint static. Be angry Be in Love be Negative Be Positive.

Take Care!

1 Like
#28

what buddha may have believed and taught thousands of years ago probably sounded immensely different than what buddhists say and teach now. i’m no authority on religion, but i’d guess the same goes for most other major ancient civ religions and beliefs. they’ve been so altered over time (usually in an attempt to control and manipulate people) that they resemble nothing of what they may originally have been.

#29

[quote=“timeLESS, post:27, topic:1217”]Seems to me that, what happens alot in this culture of ours is that people find a thing (like being positive) that helps them deal with shit, and as soon as they see it works (helps) they think it therefore must help in every situation all of the time.

This seems to be true for many things. What follows then with this line of thinking is that because (insert belief) is at all times good, its (insert dualist thinking / opposite) must be at all times bad.

Everything has its place and value, and sometimes being positive helps the overall situation and sometimes it might lead to the false perception of it helping out in the situation and sometimes it doesnt do shit. or worse.

Hell we can be positive and fucking AnGRY can’t we? I can see the black hole that is our situation yet i’m positive in the things im trying to achieve amidst all the sadness and grief.

This positive thinking mantra falls in the same traps as every other dominant culture belief, in that it identifies something as evil and then resolves to become its antitheses and thus to become “good” “righteous” etc.

So uhmm be positive when you are positive, be wicked mad when you are wicked mad. Stop thinking on how you should feel, instead explore how you DO feel. Feel bad? explore that shit, you know it will change right? life aint static. Be angry Be in Love be Negative Be Positive.

Take Care![/quote]
i think it might be that in an effort to control their emotions, people often try to kill them. for instance, i know a lot of guys (myself included) that find it extremely hard, if not impossible, to cry. we’ve been taught that boys don’t cry, that expressing sorrow is a sign of weakness, so we’ve been taught to kill that emotion. similarly we are killing anger when we call it a “disease” (as my brother calls it) instead of calling it a useful friend.
being able to work with our emotions does not mean we need to sit on them and stuff them into a bag.

#30

Yeah, having difficulties with openly grieving draws me to this part of the forum as well. We should really buy some whiskey, sing songs and cry for all the shit, im convinced it could be fun to be sad.

are we in ?