As the year was coming to the end many of us were looking back and thinking of everything that happened in the last 12 months. There are summaries, lists, videos, blogs, etc. saying that it was a bad year, tragic year, that so many bad things happened, so many great people passed; that it is so good that it’s finally over!
There were also those that got upset with the “negative” comments. Those that said: common, it wasn’t all bad! Look at the positive things, look at things that went well! For example, pandas are no longer on endangered species list! That’s positive, isn’t it.
It definitely is. I am so happy for pandas! I am also a little uneasy with comparing a “negative thing” like a refugees crisis or the never-ending war in Somalia to pandas. I cannot get excited about 500 elephants being relocated to a better, safer and bigger home when I hear about over 700 Fentanil overdose deaths in Downtown Eastside last year. Is it a negative thinking, or a reality check?
I cannot see any value in refusing to accept the facts and trying to cover it up with a Pollyanna look at the world. We have to see the hard facts and learn from them.
I do not divide the thoughts and feelings into “negative” and “positive”. There are all neutral; we assign a “positive” or “negative” charge to them. We have to experience and accept them all. Just the same as we have to see and accept dark parts in us and stop pretending that we see and do only good and never have horrible thoughts or wishes.
If we don’t talk about death, sadness, anger, resentment, or an appetite for vengeance, we deny a big part of our own humanity. We are good and capable of heroic acts, compassion, and love. And we can also be cruel, selfish, ruthless, thoughtless, and inconsiderate. Those traits help us to survive, work hard, climb up the career ladder, break up the abusive relationship, fight the terminal illness or addiction.
It is totally up to us how we use those traits based on our ethics and moral standards. We chose who we want to be not by denying the dark parts in us but by deciding which parts are going to direct our life.
Our own mortality will not go away if we don’t talk about death. We all have to die. The sooner we accept this simple fact of life, the better for us. We can live fuller, more responsible life if we remember that it will not last forever. We can love our family and friends better if we remember that they will not last forever.
We may have evil thoughts and even wish harm to somebody. This a part of being a human. If we deny it and insist that we are always good and nice, how can we find compassion for ourselves? How can we find compassion for somebody else’s dark feelings and mistakes?
It is great to see worth and goodness in everybody despite their unacceptable behaviour or temporary lapse of reason. It is very dangerous if you want to see only “positive” things and feel threatened or disillusioned with every trace of anger, sadness, or wickedness in yourself or in somebody else. Nobody is always “happy, positive and rosy”. Things get tough sometimes and we get tough. There is nothing “negative” in it. It is just a part of life and a part of human nature.
There is beauty in darkness (think Leonard Cohen poetry, for example). The world would be shallow and unnatural without the dark side. The trick is to see it as normal and appreciate what it brings. Just the same as the storm before the calm and darkness before the sunrise. It all has the same value.
By Eva Sadowski
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