I got your hope right here!
Dude, where's your positivity? - Blogs - DAWN.COM
Dude, where's your positivity?
By Nadeem F. Paracha
We have, in our midst, what is perhaps the most preachy generation that has no clue that they are a negation of what they preach. Stars and planets controlling your destiny, colours and auras defining your personality, preachers, priests, and clerics connecting you with the Divine, gurus and yogis giving you peace of mind.
Yes, all this can be yours ... but only if: You have money to throw; a mind to waste; an intellect that is lazy; emotions that need a crutch; and a life aching from yuppie boredom.
So, get your fat wallets out, suckers, and let's groove on that New Age Spirituality bash! Yea, baby.
What happens to a generation of young folk brought up on mythical tales of swords and horses and simultaneously on those so-called ‘building self-esteem’/self-improvement corporate seminars that are in essence the yuppie absorption of the late 'New Age’ nonsense about personal aura, positive vibes, etc.?
Well, the result in this context, are blobs of walking talking contradictions.
What’s even worse, many of these blobs have absolutely no clue that they are a negation of what they preach. And yes, we have, in our midst, what is perhaps the most preachy generation ever.
They will preach ‘positive thinking’ to the cynics, calmly ignoring the fact that cynics might just be skeptics (what most rational human beings usually are. And should be).
Ah, but that would mean repressing one’s emotions, no? A very unhealthy thing to do, I tell you.
It can make a person, not only a cynic, but, horror of horrors, a non-patriot, which, in our case, can then lead him to becoming things that are even worse.
Like, say, a wit or a sneaky satirist.
In such a case, 'positive thinking' must dictate affirmative action: Ban the bugger!
Of course, you must understand that such (positive) logic is usually entirely based on delusional and/or paranoid assumptions. Positive thinking demands it and your healthy and spiritual disposition commands it.
Otherwise finding and investigating the facts behind assumptions can be a time-wasting exercise that makes Jack or Junaid or whosoever a very dull, introverted boy on his way to becoming a cynic, and thus a positive case for existentialist excommunication.
But don't despair. The man-on-horseback-with-swords-meet-lets-be positive-la-la-la generation will shower you with great admiration if you (albeit unthinkingly) and animatedly nod to whatever positivism is trending on Twitter or Facebook.
No, this does not make you behave like a sheep but … okay, yes, it does but … like, so what, no? Sheep have feelings too, y'know (except on Bakra Eid).
The said generation will shower you with love if you agree with their 'positivism.' Especially if the positivism is about being positive in ones condemnation of what is not positive. Such as a display of individualism.
You are ‘paid’ (by ‘negative forces') if you disagree with the positivists. But, of course, you suddenly become positively patriotic if you agree. But, really, this man-on-horseback-with-sword-meet-lets-be positive-la-la-la generation that leapfrogs from Bin Qasim to Deepak Chopra to Imran Khan to the ‘be positive’ corporate guru of the month in a matter of a single rhetorical sentence, can be quite a riot, really – in an entertaining sort of a way.
Take for instance how in 2010 many of them responded to the UK court’s verdict on the three Pakistani spot-fixing cricketers.
Last year, when the spot-fixing scandal broke, positive thinking dictated that the cricketers must be supported because both the international and local negative forces that are always relentlessly conspiring to tarnish the country’s name were most probably behind this episode. And thanks to many of our positive media personnel it seemed that for a while, Salman Butt, Muhammad Amir and Muhammad Asif, were about to become the male equivalents of Aafia Siddiqui (remember her of the ‘I shot the sheriff’ fame?).
But, alas, a little more than a year later when the three were proven guilty in court and sent to prison, all hell broke loose. No, there were no rallies against the ruling or any condemnation.
Instead, people began burning the effigies of the three cricketing idiots, cursing them for tarnishing the country’s name. Duh?
So, negative old me decided to tweet a question:
How come there are stones and curses for a spot-fixer but rallies and rose petals for a convicted felon or, worse, for a deluded gun-slinging self-appointed defender of the faith? Yes, him.
As the positives came rushing in (on Twitter) to condemn my negative question, I kept wondering.
Wondering how come so many Pakistanis and the media are ready to passionately demand that certain corrupt cricketers or politicians be lynched, but then the same people shower praises on self-appointed messiahs who commit acts of selfish, deluded brutality?
Or when they look the other way when some other self-appointees in this respect go about their business of blowing up people and an assortment of things?
Does this mean hypocrisy is a positive attribute that is good for mind, body, faith and the state?
But, then, I finally understood.
Why disturb one’s healthy positive aura and vibe with awkward questions, no?
Why complicate things. I mean, all this might lead to negative thinking thus cynicism thus unpatriotic thoughts and thus perhaps even some admiration for shameless agents like Malala, no?
One should be positive, you see. Especially about the fact that we are ready to eat grass for our precious, positive, patriotic ghairat. Or rather, the poor are ready to eat grass for it, while we breathe in fresh air doing some yoga.
So, it is our duty to sympathise with the poor grass eaters and hang a few politicians, eliminate a few cricketers and make peace with extremists to, at least keep the price of grass affordable for the masses who, God willing, will vote in hoards for Mr Positive par excellence (yes, him) in the next elections, even though positive thinking dictates democracy is a sham and only a modern-day technocratic caliphate is the answer to all our problems.
Ah. That felt good. Yea, man, check out my positive vibes now. Like, groovy, in a Bin-Qasim-driving-a-Ferrari-on-the-roads-of-Dubai kind of a way.
