The internet is a pretty dark place, isn’t it? I don’t recall it always being such a bastion of negativity, but ever since its primary function became to dole out steaming piles of stinky social media to every poor bastard it can reach, it feels like our IT emperors all went and invested their vast amounts of server space just to collect infinite threads of random angry people yelling at other random angry people, and nothing else. Terabytes upon terabytes of the digital equivalent of dogs barking at each other through a fence. Or, more accurately, piles of trash barking at each other over a pile of trash.
I guess that’s fine. Atrophy is inevitable for everything, and our dear ole’ internet is no exception.
With my fledgling little blog here, though, my goal is to not contribute to the negativity. I’ll contribute plenty of garbage to the internet, sure, because I write a lot of crap, but it just won’t be negative. That’s the plan anyway. I’ll only discuss things that I’m interested in, stoked on, or trying to learn more about. My reviews of music, books, whatever, won’t be “objective”, in that I won’t be trying to find things to critique or nitpick or condescend because frankly what the hell do I know anyway?
To quote my younger brother, “I don’t know much about music, I just know what rocks.”
I’m just gonna write about what rocks. To me. There’s a whole big ass internet out there that can rant about flaws and missteps and how it’s “just being honest” or “just asking questions” or whatever, which is really just an excuse to say nasty stuff, but I’m just gonna talk about stuff that’s cool to me. And maybe you.
I was thinking about this the other day, how upon growing older (or more accurately, having grown old), I find that overt negativity is harder and harder for me to tolerate at even a moderate volume. It’s a lot like how I can’t physically tolerate loud noise anymore. When a big old loud-ass semi truck goes rumbling by, it actually hurts my old man ears and makes me momentarily furious as all hell at that damn truck. Ten years ago… shit, five years ago… I wouldn’t have even noticed the damn thing drive by. Now I’ll feel genuine hatred for it and then have to consciously refrain from bitching to my wife about how everything is so damn loud these days (more on bitching in a minute).
So yeah, negativity is like a loud ass truck or a neighbor’s goddamn leaf blower. Negativity begets negativity.
Let’s say you’re driving to work and, bam, you run into an unexpected traffic jam due to construction or a wreck. After sitting there for 10 minutes, do you begin to seethe with rage at those maniacs up ahead that have robbed you, not only of your time, but of your agency? These bastards who decided that they’ll decide when you’ll arrive at work and you’re just gonna have to sit here and accept it?
Do you get an instinctual urge to call your loved one or your buddy or your coworker and just bitch about this unfair predicament you’re in and how no one can drive these days and how traffic keeps getting worse every year and the roads suck and everyone on the road sucks and etc etc? I do. Do you make the phone call? I don’t. Or I try really hard not to.
As much as I would like to call my wife in this situation and make her experience my righteous fury along with me because misery loves company, I think what I actually subconsciously desire in that situation is to dump my annoying anger onto someone else. Which, strangely enough, is most often a loved one.
It’s like saying to your spouse, “Hey can you hold this for a minute?” and then sprinting away.
I’m mad, so your ass better not be feeling all happy and shit! My morning sucks and so shall yours, dear wife.
Negativity begets negativity.
And speaking of compound negativity, once you’ve yanked your partner into your fart cloud of fury (more on farts in a minute), your partner will almost always become infected by it, and then will subconsciously discover that he or she also would enjoy partaking in some of that sweet sweet bitchin’ right about now too, and will spray his or her own personal piss and vinegar into any cracks that you’ve left open in your own self-serving rant. This of course will piss you off even more, and likely piss you off directly at your partner, and now you’ve got one more thorn up your ass on this stupid morning. Now you just want to hurry and hang up on your partner because of all that incessant bitchin’!
Negativity begets negativity.
Ok, back to farts…
One of my more profound and mature insights that I often like to repeat is as follows:
Complaining is a lot like farting.
Hear me out…
Let’s say you’ve spent all morning in the traffic jam and you finally make it to work. You rush to your first meeting and you immediately proclaim, “Traffic was SO bad this morning! This city is so frustrating!” Your coworkers will all chime in with agreeable sentiments. “Right on, man!” “So bad!” “They really need to do something about this, etc.” Right?
Similarly, you’re hanging with your buddies in the garage and you giggle and rip a loud fart. Your buddies are gonna laugh and say “right on, man!” One might even try to cut his own fart to show his allegiance and to maximize the comedic experience (my apologies for using an example that leans very male).
So far so good. In both the complaining scenario and the farting scenario, a single introductory complaint/fart is totally fine and often good for group morale.
Ok, but then try farting 20 more times in that garage and see what happens, man! Fart number two and three may not kill the group dynamic, but the downward trend will have begun. By fart five, the downward trend becomes a cliff and you’re no longer the funny fart guy, you’re the son of a bitch who keeps ass-bombing a packed room. A couple more farts and the group dynamic is in ruins. Not to mention the garage. Would you want to be in a room with that guy? Of course not.
It is precisely the same situation in your work meeting. After your initial group bitching sesh has concluded and the real meeting starts, try returning to your previous complaint. Then do it again. And again. You’re no longer the witty traffic observationalist, you’re now the self-absorbed jerk who keeps directing the conversation traffic back to him or herself, and everyone is now agitated and annoyed. You’ve filled the room in a cloud of negativity, very much like a fart-filled garage full of frustrated dudes. You’ve been in a meeting with a person like this, right? Do you like that person? Of course not.
Negativity begets negativity,
This long stupid post could be summarized with a simple callback to the brilliant simplicity of the golden rule. You don’t want to sit in a meeting room with a Negative Nancy or in a garage with a Stinky Ass Johnny, nor does anyone else. So don’t be a Negative Nancy or a Stinky Ass Johnny.
And positivity will usually prevail.
Anyway, I try to remind myself of this mature, stoic philosophy in those times when I have a proverbial stick up my ass or thorn in my side or a loud truck just drove by or a leaf blower makes its tenth trip by my bedroom window or traffic sucks or whatever, and that’s my goal with this blog as well. Not necessarily unbridled overt positivity (which can also be kind of annoying), but an intentional lack of negativity.
And if this post comes across as a bit bitchy, well that’s my bad. Please consider it to be my single introductory garage fart, feel free to oblige with your own complementary toot, and then we’ll all move on to the brighter and more pleasant things.
Love and nonsense,
Bones
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