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Every time a character in the Once Upon a Time series does an evil thing, their heart darkens. Good and evil is not how I see the world (by the way, you get th
by jraph 4y ago
Every time a character in the Once Upon a Time series does an evil thing, their heart darkens.
Good and evil is not how I see the world (by the way, you get the back story of Once Upon a Time's evil characters and you understand why they are like this). But I picture this whenever I rant (when writing a comment or a message, or orally). It's much worse when I criticize someone. Conversely, I notice when I say something positive (but saying positive does not usually "cancel" the darkening - the darkening is there forever).
I still rant and occasionally say bad things of people, but I'm compelled to do it less and less because I kind of feel bad whenever I do it, and I'm also compelled to say positive things more often.
I do think life is easier, simpler and more enjoyable when you avoid this negativity. At least for me.
Ranting is still needed. Somehow you may need to emotionally express things that concern you to manage your emotions (catharsis). But maybe you can keep it to a minimum, for example by saving them to your confidant(s) only.
If someone acts in a way that compels you to say bad things of them, maybe stop and try to understand their point of view instead. You could learn interesting things and avoid gratuitous negativity.
But not fighting back when someone bothers you is out of the question, and some negativity can be helpful. I try to feel how much someone is pissed off by something I did to understand how much they care, and how much effort I should provide to avoid this in the future.
- cebert 4y agoFor me ranting and being negative is easy to do and I’ve done this several times in the past. However, there’s so much negativity out there one of my new goals is to strive to be positive. There’s enough negativity out there already, no one needs more negativity from me.
- jraph 4y agoIt's also probably good for you. I believe the brain learns to do what you are used to do "better". If you spend a lot of time ranting, you'll probably rant more. You might eventually end up wired to rant against anything showing up. A relative of mine is like this, they are annoying with this. It probably only makes them less happy and this person seems to be annoyed by anything [new]. There's no upside to this. I personally want to avoid being like this at all cost. It's so much more enjoyable to be around someone who finds joy in insignificant things instead. I probably won't be this person but becoming closer to this is probably nice. You probably don't want to be someone who is positive at anything, even shitty stuff, but there's usually some margin.
- porknubbins 4y agoI agree, a naive view might be that if you have a lot of bad things around you its only natural to have a negative response, but we as humans can only handle so much capacity to handle bad things without becoming twisted. Call it delusional, or American toxic positivty, or optimism or whatever but I need to mentally put a thumb on the scale for positivity, real world be damned.
- williamcotton 4y agoThe subject matter of a rant is more often than not a response to an imagined narrative. Accounting for the complexities and nuances of reality does not make for a good narrative and therefore does not make for a good rant. What I try to do is take some imagined narrative that is causing an emotional reaction and use that as a starting point for artistic creation. For example, I just wrote most of a folk song in the style of a murder ballad about a man who is laid off via a Zoom meeting, tracks down and murders the boss man, and is then found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. Care to take a guess about the real-world motivations? The reality is that the people responsible for these layoffs are very different from the people in my emotionally charged imagination. The key is to use both our emotions and our inherent narrative drive in a productive manner. Funny enough, I wrote this song a few years back while still employed: C Stricken with terror F Do they still wanna pay? C How easy is it to let go G C What you don't see everyday? CHORUS: F G C And the search begins anew F G C A phone screen, an interview F G C Are the plans really falling through? F G C Just sign here, the papers are due Onsite or online Do they even know my name? If I were to leave here tomorrow Would the place stay just the same? CHORUS Working remote Does it always feel this way? And way back a long time ago Did they feel the same as today? CHORUS INSTRUMENTAL CHORUS