Exhortations
The most repeated exhortation in motivational and
corporate training circuits is about remaining positive’ irrespective of
circumstances. Having been on the circuit, I have done it, many times over. But talks about positivity is meaningless
unless we understand negativity, its contours and content and context.
Negativity is everywhere. Overt or covert in
application, crass or sophisticated in execution, words or deeds its
manifestation, its existence recognised within or experienced from outside, negativity
comes in countless shades and has little in common to call as character. Inseparable
companion for some, identity for few, fuel for aggression or weapon of defense for
many, we encounter negativity in some form every day.
Interestingly, people reeking of negativity complain most
about others’ negativity.
Power of Negativity
I realised the power of ‘negativity’, first time in the
mathematics class. We were attempting to solve a linear equation. When answers
were called in, we found ourselves in two camps. All of us noticed the negative
sign but most of us ignored its implications and turned in wrong. The vigilant few
who recognised its power took appropriate steps turned in right.
Life is like that; you ignore negativity to your peril.
It is omnipresent. Success and happiness to a large extent depends on how well,
one can recognise and manage negativity in life’s equations. Unmanaged, it can
be overwhelming. Negativity can impact personal life, as also play significant
roles in shaping social issues and its outcomes.
Irrespective of its nature and purpose, negativity commences
with and from individuals. Whether it is out of an inherent psychological
disorder and consequent delinquent compulsions or as an element of purpose, it needs
perpetrators and victims; person, persons or groups. Easily weaponised, it can
vitiate even the most pristine and benign of environments.
Negativity, becomes a weapon of menacing potency, only
if it finds conducive mediums and through them attain the threshold kinetic energy.
It is true for individuals, groups, organisations and society.
Weaponising Negativity
Most of us, if not all, suffer from bouts of
negativity. It is a natural survival kit that warns us of threats. It kick-starts
instincts to survive adversities. Apprehension and anxiety we experience are negativity
elements, but extremely useful survival tools. But when negativity persists and
becomes the identity and predominant trait of an individual, it is a problem. Individuals become negative mostly out of unaddressed
inadequacies.
Negative outlook, in most cases, is a carryover of
abusive childhood, intense physical or psychological trauma suffered anytime in
life or flawed upbringing. From the cause and effect perspective, negativity comes
from deep sense of insecurity. Responses may vary.
Negative individuals tend to see threat where none
exists. Even in the best of situations they can create monsters, play spoilsport,
experience discrimination, imagine apocalypse and seed and spread disharmony
where such eventualities are otherwise impossible. Some of them do it
deliberately and others do it by compulsion. Low on self-esteem, most of them unsocial and at times
anti-social, some withdraw into shells they create, few turn quarrelsome and violent
but most are content being selfish and manipulative; and seem to gain immense
pleasure even from small acts of disturbances they cause. Mistrust and being
untrustworthy are sure signs of deep-rooted negativity. Education, economic status,
job profiles or place in the social ladder don’t matter. Apparently leading normal lives and earning
livelihoods, they infect the environment they live in.
Look around; one may find such people.
Negative people seldom recognise their plight. Most of
them live in denial, oblivious to their own misery and the misery they spread. Few
weaponise it to achieve short-term objectives oblivious to long-term
losses. When others are inconvenienced because
of them, they become convinced of the effectiveness of their strategy, only to compound
their illness further. Those who can, avoid them and those who can’t, suffer
fait accompli.
Harvest From Negative Narratives
Negativity is contagious and easily spreads through association.
It is the most effective means to get messages across big audiences.
It is natural to view existential threats with
apprehension. If such a narrative is created and propagated, it spreads and
grips the community. Each individual, if not extremely diligent, by instinct
becomes a medium and diligence is a rarity. More the mediums, more virulent becomes
negative narratives. Initially only a few may add content but as is wont, mass
gets added arithmetically in the beginning, geometrically then and
imaginatively exponential thereafter.
There are people who thrive milking negativity. Many
politicians and religious teachers, world over, exploit their ‘subjects’
deliberately injecting negativity. When the group is fed narratives of an
impending doom, mostly conjured and propped up with lies dressed as truth, the threat
looks real. The group, then naturally listens. Those who bite the bait not only
believe in the ‘negative’ but go around baiting others. World across, the wily
have come to power using this magic formula.
Once ‘we’ and ‘they’ are defined, minds become fertile
grounds for negativity. Almost all contemporary political campaigns across the
world effectively uses negativity to garner votes. Social media proliferation is
a boon for virulent spread of such narratives. Spreading fear about after-life
consequences or threat from other religions or even sects within, some religious
leaders harvest money, fame and power from negativity. Growth of most cults, if mapped, often reveal
underlying threads of ‘negative’ narratives
Group-negativity, initially is confined to words.
However it soon turns into deeds and left unmanaged become reprisals against
the ‘other’. The silent many who remained content being spectators sooner than
later become participants and perpetrators. The holocaust is a grim reminder to
humanity of what negative narratives can yield but time seems to have numbed
our senses.
Ironic but true; though negativity starts when
objective logic fails, its only logical reasoning that can put an end to
negativity. Unfortunately, reasoning dies a few deaths with those taken in by negativity.
It is not only the illiterate, ignorant poor that make the gullible crowd but even
educated well-placed individuals stream-in, “ever hearing but never
understanding”, “ever seeing but never perceiving”.
Is there a way out of the marauding negativity?
The Equation
Constructing cause and effect equations to understand
situations help deal with negativity. But people drowned in negativity seldom
see the life-rope. Persistent chipping away at the causative factors does help
but negatives have a strange overpowering presence.
A blot on a clean apparel, however small catches the
eye first. Despite the large clean
canvas around the blot often refuses to let the eyes go. Notional or imaginary
losses have the same impact. Having made riches off paltry investments, people
fret about the falling stock indices. Industrialists, taking their own lives
having suffered losses, would not have thought even once about the growth they
charted their way up and the huge growth possibilities ahead. Engrossed in the
web of negativity they spin about themselves, they distance themselves from any
meaningful help only to be fatally consumed.
It is absolutely normal, to feel the burden of
negativity. It is good to be aware of the negative within. Willingness to accept
its presence within and address it helps us turn in right at the end of the
linear equation. Ability to identify negativity outside increases the
probability of successfully negotiating it.
The equation is simple, straight and linear. Whoever
has eyes, let them see!
