Accentuate the Positive or Eliminate the Negative?
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Don't believe everything you thinkThe liminal space Veteran
This dichotomy has been on my mind lately. It all exists on a spectrum were we seek a balance, but some naturally fall more to one side than the other. Is one better than the other, or are they two sides of the same coin? The question for the spiritual seeker, or life liver in general, do we live our lives trying to build the positive qualities and situations to better our lives and the world or do we clear away the negative aspects of life so the good can flourish? Is one way more beneficial such that we are justified in advocating generalized advice to adopt one over the other?
I come at this issue from the lens of being an introvert. Growing up introversion was viewed in a negative light, extroverts would say things like, "you just need to come out of your shell". At some point in the not so distant past introversion/extroversion was seen more as a spectrum and the positive aspects of introverts received attention and praise, while still honoring the value of extroverts.
Introversion/extroversion is only one of the psychologically defined and studied personality spectrums, the other being conscientiousness/careless (I prefer care free), agreeable/disagreeable (challenging), neuroticism/emotional stability and degree of openness to experience. To me the question at hand concerns neuroticism/emotional stability.
I test pretty heavily towards the emotional stability end of the spectrum, so it is a little hard for me to truly understand the perspective of someone towards the neuroticism end. Even so, I do believe there is value in a more neurotic world view. Problems that would bother others, don't tend to bother me and can go unaddressed until they get out of hand. And I do believe that the best medicine is customized for the individual so trying to force a neurotic peg into an emotionally stable hole isn't very productive. That said I do believe in the value of a positive focus. For one, life in the moment is likely more pleasant, and second an optimistic outlook favors seeing and taking advantage of opportunities when they do happen to arise.
Optimistic thinking has been in the ascendant for a while, but now there seems to be a shift towards the value of honoring our negative feelings. On the one hand, most everything moves in cycles and as they mature healthy strategies can become extreme and mutate into something less beneficial, toxic positivity for example. I see a distinction between the rise of the recognition of introversion and this movement towards valuing negative feeling today, in that introverts didn't condemn extroversion the way it feels like the trend today devalues a positive, constructive and forward looking attitude. I see criticism of therapies like CBT or time tested philosophies like Stoicism that have relieved a lot of suffering over the years. I find reframing my view does me a lot of good, I just recently turned 50 and was lamenting it a bit. My uncle light heartedly said its better than the alternative of not getting older, and that helped. Some of the advice I've been hearing lately would tell me that instead I should feel the bad feelings I have about ageing, I think so I can process them? But I only have those feelings because of the way I contextualize and view the reality of ageing, I don't get it... Going back to the personality spectrum, I can imagine that for others this new advice might prove helpful and recontextualization not so much.
Maybe this also somewhat goes back to the old argument about the state of nature. By eliminating the negative do we return to a naturally wholesome state, or do we need to construct beneficial structures to temper our naturally antagonistic qualities? I think baby studies show we have both positive and negative hardwired into us and thus need to both accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative to varying degrees depending on the circumstance.
That's all the long way of saying, I think its all a balance and different strokes for different folks. We're all of differing temperaments and we're all better together when we can honor these differences. I'm of a pretty positive disposition and I like hearing other perspectives. It does bother me though when those perspectives get presented as The Truth rather than one way of many valuable ways to be in the world.
What has and hasn't worked for you?
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I tend to find a new approach and dive in every once in a while, like Gabor Maté’s book on trauma, it is refreshing to me to see myself and the world from a new perspective. Then I see what remains with me afterwards, what I have learnt from it that has truly changed me.
I value positivity, but I also value truth, and the trauma approach has a lot of truth in it. It is certainly something I see myself returning to from time to time, and looking more deeply at my own trauma has made me realise that my sunny disposition was at times turning into a performance that wasn’t deep down genuine.
I’ve been carrying some things for a long while, and some of these realisations have been overdue. Maybe it’s the stage of life, I’m now 51 and finding a more nuanced approach to life, rather than the brash energy of youth, is appropriate.
I read something just now in that relating to the Buddhist path (specifically the bodhisattva path) it is like the sun and clouds and to relate to the sun you also relate to the clouds. I thought of this thread and perhaps clouds are the negative and to relate to the positive sun we also relate to the negative clouds.
I just encountered this quote and it has me thinking about its relation to this post.
I think what it brings up for me is I've lived most of my life among those who see life as more of a comedy. I've learned to like and appreciate myself as I am in that environment. Lately I feel like more of my world is mixed with those who see life more as a tragedy and I often encounter language and tone that makes me feel lesser rather than simply different. Maybe that feeling is just some unresolved trauma of mine 😉 (comedic line...) and more on me than the world.
The world can be difficult and harsh when you’re poor, I’ve been through this experience at times during my youth.
"Accentuate the Positive or Eliminate the Negative?"
A question I've pondered a lot but don't know if I've pondered up anything useful...
I've found that "keeping one iron in the fire" works best. Work on eliminating one negative thing, or accentuating one positive thing. If I try to do five things at once, I generally fail at all five.
However, working simultaneously on eliminating one negative thing and accentuating one positive thing seems to also work for me - maybe the positive thing gets positively fuelled by the released/alchemized energy of the eliminated negative thing?
I also keep noticing how everything is interconnected. An advancement in one area of life fuels advancement in others. A backtracking in one area of life fuels backtracking in another. So maybe the question is not so important and the dilemma ultimately a false one?
I also had the thought today that historically teachers gave teachings more so to monks and advanced practitioners (this may or may not be correct). These boys and gals had most probably eliminated already the most gross impurities from their lives. Hence, we ordinary folk might do best to focus on eliminating the gross impurities from our lives first, rather than aim for lofty ideals while keeping lighting fires up under our own arses
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For practical purposes, ordinary people like me would most probably do best to skip the high philosophies, and focus on cleaning up their lives to the best of their abilities and as fast as possible.
I like that, it kind of help solidify a related thought I'd had. In my experience a focus on the positive leads to a wasting away and eventually a falling off of the negative. I imagine the reverse might also be true, by unraveling the negative it stops acting as a mental drag and gives more energy to the positive?
Why do either? Anything, you do, like accentuate, or eliminate, gives rise to karma. Karma results in suffering and rebirth.
Why not the cultivation of equanimity instead?
Really I'm about synthesis and balance. My predisposition is from one direction more than the other. One I think its important to acknowledge where your bias is and two, in the world of the pointing finger, precision of language and ideas helps point us in the right direction. Maybe it isn't helpful for everyone but I find juxtaposing the poles helps me find the place of integration.
And yes, ultimately transcendence of the dichotomy is the goal.
I likes Pole Hilarities. Starting with when I look in the mirror and see the joke. To put it another way, when starting from a label (here, there, middle way, thought We haz, position + or miners etc) Go elsewhere and solve your well Boing.
In other words🤐😶🐣