Accentuate the Positive

Updated 3:03PM: I was going to write about how I had nothing to write about. I have been intimidated by missives I am reading on New Year's resolutions. Indeed there are issues in the world that call for right relations -- like last night's devastating earthquake in Haiti -- but I've been too far into my own head these days to get on the bus. I was planning to address the year ahead, looming large in front of us. Then Eugene posted a link this week that has kept me awake at night.

WNYC's Brian Lehrer recently hosted a guest named Jerry McGill, an artist and a paraplegic. His memoir, Dear Marcus: Speaking to the Man Who Shot Me, is a letter McGill wrote to the person who shot and paralyzed him at the age of 12 -- a man he has never met. The link was followed up by another link to a brief interview in The New York Times with Barbara Ehrenreich, whose latest book, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, is an indictment against blind optimism.

Also of interest is a friend of mine who recently rediscovered Don Hertzfeldt's animation. My friend particularly identifies with Mr. Fluffy, who hops around singing "Yay! Life is good...this is fun..." only to end the song with "My anus is bleeding." I can't explain why this is funny, but Hertzfeldt discovered his own creative coping mechanism for malaise and it makes people laugh.

I think they're all on the same track, despite the surface differences. McGill is testifying that he learned to subvert his anger into positivity in order to survive the attack and live an emotionally healthy life. In his interview, he says that the incident changed his path in life and showed him things in it that he may not have otherwise known were positives. As he says in the interview, "nobody has done anything great out of a place of anger."

Ehrenreich criticizes people like Oprah Winfrey for promoting a false sense of positivity and the worst kind of self-help. The author believes that "mind over matter" is not a proven cure for mental or physical illness.

Oprah is an effective guru for an LCD audience. Her faith and positivity are very real, but packaged for and re-appropriated by a public looking for a quick fix. This is what makes her very rich. The wellness industry has been relatively successful at promoting physical fitness and a good diet as cures for depression, but it is far surpassed by the psycho-pharmaceutical industry in market share. As I write this, I am listening to a segment on the radio about a book titled The Cultural Shaping of Mental Illness: The Globalization of the American Psyche. The author is discussing GlaxoSmithKline's distribution of Paxil in Japan. 50 Steps to Simple Happiness is #6 on the Most Popular Stories list on The New York Times website.

You need only to open your eyes and look around you to see that life is not good. There is indeed a lot in the world to be unhappy about. The holidays, which are mercifully now over, bring a persistent and unshakable cloud of "the old ennui" that is fueled by an over-abundance of cheer. Yesterday I was in a local shopping mall and it felt like the most dismal place on earth, and living proof that the economy is far from recovery (the only way I could afford to be there was because stores are practically giving away their merchandise, a great opportunity for someone in need of retail therapy on an extremely limited budget.)

In my own life, the topic of positivity is dear to my heart. It is a fascination, a hobby and something I struggle with all the time. Ultimately I am a happy person, but I am capable of becoming very seriously depressed. And life has handed me several occasions to be so. Like a lot of people right now, I am again facing a particularly challenging moment in time. What I have been contemplating over the past few weeks is the two possible ways I can go about dealing with my immediate future: 1) with soaring expectations, or 2) with an open but tempered mind.

No matter how much you hope for it, life does not always work out for the best. The higher you set your sights, the harder your disappointments will come crashing down around you. What softens the blow is perspective, which a lot of "wishful thinkers" don't really have because they are too narrowly focused on one outcome. It is an act of liberation to acknowledge that life is endlessly unfair and there is a lot of real things to be sad about. To do so is to free yourself from the "tyranny" of happiness. And the result? You guessed it!

So, rather than struggling to create a list of resolutions for the new year--which I think in itself is an act of negativity and possible defeat, I will instead set a few small intentions for 2010. Some of them have already begun, like making and spending more time with family and with old and new friends. I concur with McGill that anger serves no purpose in life and the best way to subvert your fear into happiness is to surround yourself with people who love you. I intend to drink less alcohol but enjoy it more when I do and I will pay closer attention to the origins and purpose of the food I eat.

I intend to stay open to multiple paths in front of me, with the idea that one of them might be a better opportunity for happiness than what I might have expected. Should I achieve my intentions, I hope to be able to share the resulting positivity.

Addendum: A friend of mine in Beacon, Catherine Welshman (a fellow Williamsburg transplant), is part of a group show opening this Saturday here at the Van Brunt Gallery. The opening is on January 16 from 6 to 9 PM, and the show runs through the end of February. Their website has not been updated, so here are some images of Catherine's recent work, which I love.