In case you haven't noticed, I really enjoy reading and this idea was taken from Huxley's "Brand New World".
Isn't it strange that we aren't allowed to hold onto negative feelings? Every time someone is angry or sad, it's always a problem that needs to be fixed. We offer numerous resources, therapy etc to make sure that no one ever has to feel angry or sad again.
We don't offer those services to someone that is always happy. I mean if they are able to stay happy even during times of grief, sadness and despair, that is clearly nothing wrong with them.....right? Maybe we need to be more like them?
"Laugh and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone"- Ella Wheeler
Society favors positive feelings over negative ones. But why is one worth more than the other? In my opinion,
Negativity induces passion
Passion induces chaos
Chaos induces change
Change is something society doesn't want. In order, to keep the wheels turning, society will make concentrated efforts to make sure everyone is happy. Revolutions have never been started with love and peace. It started with negativity. Negativity about their lives, their surrounding, their friends and their families. Negativity gives the oppressed the strength to fight against their oppressors whether they reside on the battlefield or within themselves. Think about these words again.
Negativity. Passion. Chaos. Aren't those feelings part of being human? If so, then we have a right to those feelings.
We have a right to feel anger, sadness and pain. Society wants to shut that down to keep the elite in control while the rest live in blissful ignorance.
Don't let them. You have a right to drown in your grief and anger. Because in that moment and only in that moment, you will discover power. The power to change yourself and the rest of the world.
Thanks for reading!
This. All this. Years back I was working at a GNC. A woman came in looking for Dopamine, because she was depressed. First I told her that dopamine will not work, because it does not cross the blood brain barrier. She was very disappointed to hear this, and then told me that she was depressed because her daughter had died. I told her, grief in not something she should try to medicate, and to be very leary of any doctor who does. We have to deal with the Negative feelings. Myself, I harbor contention towards society and its relentless onslaught of stupid traditions, repeated unsolicited and bad advice from people, and wreckless materialism, and many other things. Fortunately I have directed my anger into productivity, and am less irritated, and working on fixing some of societies problems.
Same here. There are a lot of things that I am not happy about. I don't go around looking for drugs to medicate them; I try to channel the negative energy into making myself a better person.
I can't get over that anecdote though; Isn't a mother supposed to grieve when she loses her daughter? What is this world coming to? We are already handing out drugs for anxiety and depression, could you imagine grief?
One day, we'll abolish funerals and have a party every time someone dies.
I think there is a difference between using your negative emotions to foster change and wallowing in them. Left alone, and experiences without judgment, negative feelings resolve and go away on their own, and as you said, they can make you feel passionate to change things for the better. However, holding on to those feelings is not conducive for any change as you are simply attaching yourself to a situation.
I do agree with you that avoiding negative feelings is very very bad, but so is keeping yourself attached to them. For me happiness is not some emotional state I need to hold on to in fear of losing it, but the "echo" in the background that reminds me of how amazing life is, even when it gets hard and may "feel" bad.
You are right. However I would swap out the word situation with goal. Without a specific goal in mind, the discouraged individual will direct his feeling randomly, even at innocent people. A good explanation for the recent displays of mass shootings. I should have been more specific on that point.
I was thinking for some time about what you say, because in my opinion, maybe I'm wrong, the goal of society can be precisely to seek the greatest possible amount of happiness for the associates. Whether this or not, it doesn't matter. But if it seems to me that in the most successful society possible, all people are happy, and in the most degenerate and corrupt society possible, all seem to be happy. That's the difference, between being and appear.
Modern society has an obsession with appearance and is an unfortunate sign of weakness. This is the reason why many people infamously want to force us, not to be happy because it is impossible, but to pretend it. I think that's also why Hollywood plays such an important role. Or very well the case of political correctness, which seeks, not to eradicate the problems, but to disguise them.
And I also think that many times oneself sin of these things, when do things to pretend and not because they should be done in that way, and when in another case, ask others (explicitly or implicitly) to appear and not that act naturally. In short, when we want to change others instead of changing ourselves.
Interesting point. Yes people do pretend to be happy to fulfill the status quo. But the biggest problem to me isn't between pretending and being but rather the authenticity of the being. In a "Brave New World", in order to avoid uncomfortable feelings like anxiety, loneliness anger etc, people ingested a drug known as "soma".
This is important because today we have a lot of soma type drugs and liquids freely consumed by the public; alcohol, xanax, cocaine, CBD oil etc.
These drugs make people believe that they are happy. Almost like a psychological trick. These drugs bypass the natural power process of human growth and development to create artificial happiness.
Let's suppose that there is a real life soma available and no one has to feel unhappy again. A solution that will "cure" the pretenders when the aforementioned drugs do not. A perfect dystopia. One would then have to consider the first point of your post.
Is the perfect society one where everyone is eternally happy or one where everyone is human, exercising the full range of their emotions?
Perhaps the perfect society is this, and the past, and the next. All perfect for different times and circumstances. Eternal happiness is unattainable for the human, at least it seems to me, but the goal is always to have the greatest degree of it.
But I agree with what you say, and I cannot help but see the error of my first comment, and is that society can't seek the highest degree of happiness, because the nature of happiness implores not to be sought. If you are looking for something, it is precisely because you don't have it, and therefore a society that "seeks happiness" is unhappy. In the same way, I would not consider someone who takes drugs to be happy a truly happy person.
The drugs that seek to deceive the senses of man to make him feel certain emotions try to deny reality and build a fictional world so that the human feels more comfortable. This is the biggest externalization; try to make reality adapt to you so that you are happy, instead of adapting yourself to reality to be happy. Big problem.
It seems that happiness itself can be an evil if it is not given in the right conditions.
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STOPGrundsätzlich ist das die richtige Einstellung zu diesem Thema. Ich würde jetzt allerdings ein wenig abbiegen wollen. Hier wird zu sehr auf die Gefühle um Trauer, Verlust, Angst eingegangen. Jeder sollte wissen, dass wir ohne diese Eigenschaften "wahrscheinlich" gar nicht so weit gekommen wären. Natürlich hat jeder Mensch das Recht auf solche Gefühle und es wird erst Problematisch, wenn diese Gefühle nicht ausgelebt werden können.
Nun aber zu Fanatismus, Rassismus, Glaubenskrieger etc. etc. Ist bei denen irgendetwas positiv? Nein, sicherlich nicht. Mit welcher Begründung sollen - nur als Beispiel - die rechtsradikalen Vertreter mit Bierflasche und Knüppel Ihrem Ärger Luft machen dürfen, damit sie ihre Gefühle ausleben können?
Ich glaube das man das nicht in eine Schüssel werfen kann.
Es gibt gravierende Unterschiede bei negativen und auch bei positiven Gefühlen.