The Totally Positive Mate

Robert
Treborlang
Australia

The Totally Positive Mate
Until a few minutes ago if you got up in China and tried to speak the truth about repression or injustice, you were accused of being a revisionist. If they want to knock you down in the US without any evidence because you displease people with your ideas, all they have to do is call you a racist. In Iran, if they want to get you for not toeing the line or for speaking the plain truth, they call you a heretic.

  In this country, a nation not given to great political credos, the unanswerable damning accusation from people invariably is: "You're being negative."

  Being accused of negativity is like being denounced for selling your soul to the devil in the Middle Ages. The fires of hell are sure to get you if society doesn't grill you first. On the other hand, just like being on the side of the angels, the highest social accolade anyone can receive is to be considered "positive".

  This is why understanding the concept of negative and positive will smooth your entry into all the strata of Australia's classless society.

Know then, oh reader, that what you will always have to remember is that when people accuse you of being "negative" they're not concerned with you but are giving you a hint to back off from whatever it is they don't want to hear.

  While "negative" is a designation your partner applies to you when your world view threatens theirs, "positive", on the other hand, is a word they usually apply to themselves to disguise the fantasy they have of a given situation.

  Know then that when people say: "I'd like you to be positive" what they are doing is asking you to give them the green light to be impractical or fantastic or both.

  This is why, oh reader, when people say: "Don't be negative" what they really mean is: "Don't bother me with facts, don't bring reality into this, I don't want to hear about how things really are". And when they say: "Be positive" what they mean to say is: "I like to live on schemes and plans and would like you to either encourage me in my flights of fancy or shut up."

Bringing up facts is generally considered highly negative.

  If not employing actual fantasy, then you have to exhibit an unrealistic impractical point of view in order to be considered positive.

  "I like it when you're positive" means "I like it when you pretend that things are the way I say they are" or even "I like it when you pretend that I am the way I say I am."

  "I hate it when you're negative" usually means "Don't face me with my real personality" or "Don't bring my obvious character traits or our actual financial situation into the discussion."

The more unreachable the goal your partner proposes, the more positive your reaction has to be.

  They may tell you, for instance: "I'm going to give up being a dentist next year and take up Formula One driving or start a vineyard and produce award-winning chardonnays."

  It would be considered negative to say: "But you don't have a driver's licence and you're allergic to alcohol." The positive approach is: "It's a fabulous idea. You should buy that Nigel Mansell video tape and become a subscriber of the Wine Growers Association News Bulletin straight away."

  You'll know you're barking up the wrong tree when they try to stop the flow of whatever you're saying or try to shame you into changing the topic, by looking pained, eyes slightly sideways, and remarking in a mournful but somewhat edgy voice:
  "That's a bit negative, isn't it?" or "Why do you have to be so negative?"

  Naturally, the normal reaction is to turn around, look at them with an indignant expression and almost instantaneously answer:
  "No, I'm not."

  Unfortunately this is the wrong reaction as is proven throughout history by people like Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei who, when accused of being heretics would also say:
  "No, I'm not."
  "Aha! That's exactly what a heretic would say."
  "What can I do?"
  "You better confess now and we'll send you to a re-education camp."

There is only one type of counter defence to an accusation of being negative and it should always be: "No, I'm not being negative, I'm just playing Devil's Advocate."
  So you've won that round, for the time being they're forced to retreat.

  On the other hand, if you want to earn a "ten" for being positive then whatever you say has to be utterly fantastic. For example, if you were to tell your partner: "You never take out the garbage," they could easily turn around and say: "Stop being negative". Because you're telling them the truth. The positive approach in this situation would be to say: "You should build a little robot that would take the garbage out automatically whenever the bin is full." True, the garbage may still pile up in the kitchen but at least you will be rewarded by the fact that your partner will consider you a highly "positive" person.

  Practise being positive with your friends and lovers. Someone might perhaps say something really tricky such as: "I know I'm seventy-five kilos and only a hundred-and-sixty centimetres tall but I'm sure that if I was to find the right diet by this time next week I could be my normal weight of fifty-five kilos."

  If you were to point out that apart from the case of a terminal illness it would be difficult to drop twenty kilos in one week, or make some other statement based on fact, you would be considered by all concerned to be irredeemably negative.

  Your irrefutably positive reply therefore should be: "Fifty-five kilos my foot! I reckon if you really tried, you could get down to forty-five by the weekend and win that talent quest."

Copyright © 1991-2002 - Robert Treborlang

Robert
Treborlang
Australia

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