[Ibon]

I think understanding the precarious situation globally and not being able to take physical concrete action on a local level is a recipe for negativity.

If you understand the big picture and embrace how daunting and difficult the future is but find yourself growing your own food, creating compost, building, working outdoors and engaging in the process in some concrete physical way, then the negativity of the global situation is mitigated in your head quite a bit and externally somewhat as well.

Understanding our plight and sitting on it without being engaged in some physical way leads to a pathway of cynicism and negativity.

I know the shit that's going down up the road a bit but at the end of a long day of landscaping here in the tropics I frankly don't really find myself all that worried anymore.

THe trick of understanding the big picture and engaging locally in the moment is an art that needs to be learned.....even if the castles you are building are only made of sand......that slip into the sea....eventually.

[Olaf]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'L')udi, as you know, I've been taking many concrete actions in my personal life in response to the converging catastrophes, and many of them have been inspired by things I've been exposed to on PO.com. I've done everything from permanently selling mountains of stocks to taking up worm composting, and everything in-between. Bluebird nest boxes, mushrooms, fruit and nut trees, buying additional land, and more. I've moved a great deal of money around because of this website, and I've taken some significant risks. I've been inspired by people here, and I've tried to inspire others in threads where that stance seems appropriate.

I do all of this even though I know "it's hopeless."

I have a two-track mind on all of this and can fairly easily switch between tracks. I recognize that not everyone can do this, and I regret that some of my commentary may have been depressing or painful to others, particularly newbies.

I know where you're coming from, and I do try to be as realistically positive as possible . . . but, it's a struggle. As I've said elsewhere, the thing that really did it for me was the recent revelations (over the past two years or so) about global warming. I'm a passionate animal lover, so the prospect of mass extinctions sends me close to the edge. I can scarcely get myself to open the lastest issue of "National Geographic" and look at the pictures of all those glorious creatures and places we are losing forever.

Negativity is probably much like depression in that it is anger turned inward (along with chemical imbalances). It's very hard to get a depressed person to change by pointing out to him or her, in a logical way, the unrewarding characteristics of being depressed. The anger is there because there is so much provoking it, and it must find some sort of socially acceptable outlet. Since I can't go and kick Bush et al.'s teeth in, I have to kick in my own (while also, yes, putting lots of energy into my country places). Crazy, isn't it.

[Heineken]

Thanks, Olaf. Thanks very much.

I do a huge amount of outdoor work; right now, among other things, I'm building a trail system on a new piece of land I bought, using hand tools and a chainsaw. It's a great way to channel aggression and at the same time end up with something nice.

My humanity is still there I think, but I'm so cut off from real (as opposed to virtual) people that sometimes I have to wonder whether I'm connected enough to be considered human. I guess even hermits are human, though.

[Ludi]

I don't have much interaction with people in "real life" either, Heineken, except with my husband, and extremely casual interaction when I go to town once a week to shop. I see my friends once a month, we're very spread out geographically. So forums like this one are my main social outlet. Though I talk about the importance of community a lot here, I don't have much of one myself, because I have pretty bad social anxiety, even with medication.

I depend too much on my husband, which makes me worry about the future if something were to happen to him.

[Heineken]

Your social situation is eerily similar to mine, Ludi, except I don't see friends once a month. I've gradually lost touch with my friends, and I never had many to begin with. I have an older brother in Boston from whom I was estranged for many years, but we reconnected earlier this year and are now very close (via what else? e-mail). I have the two old parents over at the other house on my "farm." I have my live-in, same-sex companion (who is both a strength and a complication, given that this is, after all, rural Virginia) and my darling dog. And yes, I have those charming clerks at the local stores. I've made a few (not many) attempts to make friends locally over the years, but I don't seem to be able to connect in that way with people anymore; I just have too much baggage at my age. I was a social phobic for a long time, a condition that was a byproduct of very low self-esteem. I'm much less fearful of people now, but that hasn't brought me any closer to them.

I question whether typing messages on a computer qualifies as social interaction. My brother and I have a running debate about that.

[Olaf]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'Y')our social situation is eerily similar to mine, Ludi, except I don't see friends once a month. I've gradually lost touch with my friends, and I never had many to begin with. I have an older brother in Boston from whom I was estranged for many years, but we reconnected earlier this year and are now very close (via what else? e-mail). I have the two old parents over at the other house on my "farm." I have my live-in, same-sex companion (who is both a strength and a complication, given that this is, after all, rural Virginia) and my darling dog. And yes, I have those charming clerks at the local stores. I've made a few (not many) attempts to make friends locally over the years, but I don't seem to be able to connect in that way with people anymore; I just have too much baggage at my age. I was a social phobic for a long time, a condition that was a byproduct of very low self-esteem. I'm much less fearful of people now, but that hasn't brought me any closer to them.

I question whether typing messages on a computer qualifies as social interaction. My brother and I have a running debate about that.

[Heineken]

Those are wonderful lines, Olaf.

The Adirondacks appeal to me strongly, and I came close to buying a property up there just in the past year, but the difficulty (or impossibility) of moving my elderly parents there was too great an obstacle.

Getting deep into nature is, for me, a partial cure for people problems or loneliness. I spend as much time in the woods as I can. When you're by yourself in the woods, being by yourself seems utterly natural.

The drought here in south-central Virginia has become so serious that I find myself hiding indoors, though. Going outside actually depresses me right now.

[Byron100]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '
') ......

Getting deep into nature is, for me, a partial cure for people problems or loneliness. I spend as much time in the woods as I can. When you're by yourself in the woods, being by yourself seems utterly natural.

The drought here in south-central Virginia has become so serious that I find myself hiding indoors, though. Going outside actually depresses me right now.

[Heineken]

Yes, when you drive down our road you leave in your wake streamers of dust. The trees themselves are dusty and sere. The dogwoods are wilted. The grass is brown and crisp. The small streams are dried up. A big lake near here (Lake Anna) is dropping fast. When you dig a hole, there's no soil moisture to be found. The sun blinds and dominates all.

[Byron100]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'Y')es, when you drive down our road you leave in your wake streamers of dust. The trees themselves are dusty and sere. The dogwoods are wilted. The grass is brown and crisp. The small streams are dried up. A big lake near here (Lake Anna) is dropping fast. When you dig a hole, there's no soil moisture to be found. The sun blinds and dominates all.

[PenultimateManStanding]

In October, 2003 we had an astonishing and frightful firestorm here in San Diego. The air was so foul for a week that the schools were closed. But I don't know that we can blame global warming for that, The Chaparral hadn't burned for 40 years and had grown to a height of 20 feet. The worst fire in California history. Only a change in the wind prevented La Jolla from burning down. The flames were 200 feet high and could not be stopped. They went where the winds directed them.

[PenultimateManStanding]

Just south of the border they have chaparral too. And they have constant brush fires. It keeps the brush trimmed. They don't have monster fires down there. We have them here because we put out the brush fires until they become uncontainable. Some how, this seems like the perfect metaphor for peak oil. Not that the Mexicans aren't facing a meltdown. They are. We all are.

[Ludi]

Getting off-topic here, folks.

The topic isn't "why are you negative?" but "why is negativity important to you?" that is, "what benefit do you get from being negative/pessimistic?"

Thanks.

[Olaf]

As has been explained here, I think I am able to use some negativity as motivation. It 'gets you out of your seat' if you will. The whole 'hope for the best' and prepare for the worst still leaves you with a lot of 'worst' to be ready for.

Olafr

[Heineken]

Ludi, Wayne Dyer's "Your Erroneous Zones" may hold a partial answer to your question. In that book, Dyer discusses the origins and features of all sorts of negative emotions, such as fear, anger, worry, and guilt. He asks the same basic question you do: Why do we have such emotions, when they feel so bad? Wouldn't the pain of such emotions tend to lead to their self-extinguishment?

The answer is that we get a psychological payoff for having negative emotions. The basic payoff for all of them is avoidance of real personal change, which for many of us is very difficult or painful---more painful, we erroneously believe, than the negativity itself. For example, we may use fear about bad things that happened to us in the past to "immobilize" ourselves against ever having to face (or overcome) those things again. Of course, in the long run, the cost of not changing generally outweighs the cost of change.

Interestingly, this theory directly contradicts what Olaf just said, and with which I also agree.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '
')Interestingly, this theory directly contradicts what Olaf just said, and with which I also agree.

[threadbear]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '
')Interestingly, this theory directly contradicts what Olaf just said, and with which I also agree.

[Heineken]

Ditto for you guys. It's very unlikely I'll ever actually meet any of you, but anonymous "stage" names like pstarr, threadbear, Ludi, Shanny, coyote, and some others are permanently emblazoned on my brain as some of the really important people in my life. (PMS you freak, I haven't quite decided about you yet . . . just kidding.)

And Lord knows we all have disabilities of one sort or another. Because of a peripheral nerve disease (RSD), I lived without the use of my arms for an entire year, and in constant severe pain, and with no assurance that I'd ever recover. So I have some notion of what a permanent physical disability must be like.

My arms are all better now, miraculously, but I'm left with with the full slew of my mental and emotional difficulties.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', 'N')egativity is different. This seems to be an outlook that filters all of reality through a dark lens, languishing in the dark, or worse, the void. Most people on this forum actually don't strike me as being profoundly negative, by nature, just reacting to an ugly set of circumstances.