The tyranny of the positive attitude

When is complaining a useful piece of communication and when does it become destructive? There's this preacher who's gotten on the positive attitude bandwagon and is telling his congregation to quit their bitching.

I hate complaining personally. However, I'm a cranky bitch when I hurt and no amount of positive attitude changes the fact that I hurt. I find that having any sort of conversation is exhausting and people think I'm snubbing them. I try to tell people how I'm feeling, but it comes out as complaining to my own ears. Fortunately my best friends are introverts and don't have any problems sitting in a room with me and not talking. My husband and daughter have more trouble with it. My son keeps up both sides of the conversation all by himself.

Someone told me to read The Secret. I know I'll have to, if only to defend myself against it.

I'm the most positive pessimist I know. I like hearing the worst first, 'cause after that everything is up. I believe that I have a good life. I have the best family anyone could ever wish for. I am living the way I always wanted to. Just by virtue of being born into the place and time that I was I am already better off than 90% of my species.

BUT

I am not sick because I somehow "called it to me". Its a bacteria that is, in the grand scheme of things, just living its own little microbial life.

My father is not dying because he thought the wrong thoughts. He's 70 years old and spent too many years playing golf in the sunshine without sunscreen.

The vast majority of victims of domestic violence do not collude with their abusers

Positive thinking is not going to fix the war in Iraq. Some even may argue that an overabundance of optimism got us into that mess in the first place by expecting that our presence would be welcome.

Optimists die every day of the week. Of every kind of cause. And sometimes things are hopeless and unfair. And in those situations grief is appropriate. Even, dare I say, healthy. Normal.

Ghandi and Martin Luther King were angry men. They just understood how to use their anger to their advantage. Listen to MLK's speeches sometime. Barely suppressed rage underlines the greatest of those speeches. The belief that one person can make a difference is different from this pernicious positivity espoused by the talk shows. From the blame-the-victim pop psych self help trash.

Karl Marx is spinning in his grave over this repackaged people's opiate. Mindless positivity is a fine example of mind control. But instead of waiting for heaven in the next life, its our own damned fault if we don't have it here. As the bumper sticker says, "If you're not outraged, your not paying attention."