Positively Silent
You know who we haven’t heard from in a while? The positive thinkers. It seems that ever since the coronavirus dismantled all our lives, there’s been nary so much as a peep from our old friends with the easy solutions and encouraging platitudes. Fascinating, don’t you think?
What, no reminder that everything that occurs is ultimately for the best? Isn’t it all meant to be? Doesn’t everything happen for a reason? Doesn’t the universe guide our lives so long as we speak our hearts’ desires out into it, or something? Aren’t our thoughts so powerful that we can manifest things by envisioning and affirming and banishing negativity?
Where did those people go? They were a hoot. Is it possible that the awful and undeniable reality of this plague poses a threat not only to our health and to the economy, but also to their bizarre superstitions? Or am I being negative?
I think it would be riveting to watch those positive thinkers counsel those who are suffering with the virus by reminding them to envision health and speak that affirmation out loud so that the incantation can work its magic. I’d love to hear them promise those who’ve lost their jobs that the reason it happened is because the universe has something better in store for them, and maybe they’re meant to not have income right now so that they can learn important lessons that will make their lives amazingly wonderful in the future. Hey, maybe they can tell the people who can’t get toilet paper that it’s because the universe knows what they need, and toilet paper isn’t on the universe’s list for them in their lives right now.
Curiously, those folks are nowhere to be found these days.
Come to think of it, we have had one example of positive thinking during all this. It’s come from our president, who has repeatedly banished negativity by telling us the virus isn’t real, that it’s very mild, that very few people have it, and that it will disappear very soon in a way that will be like a miracle. Who knows? That miracle might even coincide with the celebration of Easter . . . “a very special time” for him. Unfortunately, all these upbeat falsehoods have been negated by actual true things that have happened: illness, poverty, death . . . that kind of stuff. Meanwhile, those who believed him were endangered by his reckless misinformation. So much for the power of positivity; for some, it led to death.
In a way, I blame myself. On election night, I was gathered with a group of people watching the results. Late in the evening, I unthinkingly muttered “My God. Trump’s going to win.” Someone heard me and was horrified. “Don’t say that!” she scolded, “You’ll speak it into existence.” (This really happened. I have witnesses.) Alas, it was too late. I had already given power to the negative thought by saying out loud and . . . well . . . we all know what happened. Sorry about that.
Reality has a pesky habit of debunking myths. There’s nothing positive about this plague. Well, all right, maybe one thing. It’s given us temporary relief from this one particular brand of malarkey. And I have very positive feelings about that.