The concept of "positivity" has been chewed so finely that it yields scarcely benefit to our lives anymore. What probably started as an important reminder that an environment of relentless anger and sadness was bad for you (no doubt) has since become a bland demi-worldview insisting on relentless happiness. Now we are reminded to keep our spaces "positive" (which apparently means constructive debate or disagreement is taboo) and lectured on the "power of positive thinking" (spoiler alert, good vibes are the symptom not the condition). Like many dissolutions of language, this gradual transformation has made the concept less useful. It also distorts what I think is the most helpful and truly powerful way to define and understand the word. To keep things straight, I'm going to reintroduce us to The Positive.
If “positivity” focuses on maintaining a pasted-on mask of happy thoughts and feelings, The Positive insists that what matters is actually making or doing Something. Anything. It's really simple, right back to math that even I'm able to understand. A negative in this sense is the absence of anything, potential maybe but nothing more. The Positive is the first real thing that enters the space. It can be 1 or 1 million or .0001, but anything real changes the whole game. The goal if we are going to place our focus on The Positive is to make that step from a Negative void to a Positive product. Then do it again, and again.
We have to keep things this simple because there seems to be a huge weight of inertia pushing against us, trying to trap us in Negative space. This grinding assault comes from many fronts. The relentless negativity of social media screaming that nothing is good enough to be worth doing anyway. The gentle disbelief of family and friends who know you too well to believe that this time will be different. But also the "positivity" many insist on drowns out the first stirrings of truly Positive activity often enough to feel insidious sometimes. After all, if we stay busy liking and supporting and cheering we will maybe never have to actually sit down and, well, do anything real. Because real activity is risky, and hard, and might not succeed. Real Positive action will draw real criticism from people who know the difference between good and bad work. And if those people truly have our best interests at heart, they won't spare our feelings. They will lovingly insist on grinding away whatever we build that isn't true, or beautiful, or good. So much easier to just stand on the sidelines and either fling cheap pedantry at everyone else's efforts or demand that the only voices allowed to speak are those maintaining a cheery demeanor and giving everyone the praise that few deserve.
And that is exactly what many do. The place I most often see this at work is within my own calling of church ministry. Of all the vocations, it is perhaps most understandable that there would be fierce debate as to how to correctly carry out this one. After all, we really believe this is true and that makes every detail important. I demand careful thought and intense work of myself and expect it of others. But let me let you in on a little secret. The loudest critics are to be found furthest away from where the real work of ministry is being done. They flourish in buzzing hives, darting around social media to descend in fury on their next chosen victim only to turn around the next day and insist that all these arguments mean that we shouldn't have any more real conversations because they are too divisive. Meanwhile? The real ministers are at work. Quietly, agonizingly, day by day they pray and learn and endure and weep and teach. If they do their job right, the smallest and nearest circle of their life is the one where their focus is most intense. Because that's where the real Positive activity is going on, after all.
This kind of ministry is imperfect, and often carried out by poorly trained and underfunded workers in deep need of many things. Many of the criticisms lobbed from the sidelines will be right. But the wonderful thing is that being right in principle on the sideline isn't worth close to the same as being wrong on the field. The one who lives to fight on, learns. And grows stronger. This is what I mean by Positive action, and I am increasingly convinced it one of the most worthy measures of a good life. Doing nothing performatively isn’t better than struggling to make something real. It's almost infinitely worse, because it fills your soul with misplaced pride and anger. The workman is humble because he feels his own aches and knows his own scars. He relies on Him who strengthens the weak arm, rather than simply insisting that a weak arm could be fixed if only his plan had been adopted in committee. And it is the plodding workman who, over the course of a life, establishes a legacy of experience and struggle that transforms gradually into beauty.
How can we practically build our lives in this way, and resist the temptation to watch others idly? I think the best step we can take is to leave behind places where the driving force is towards either mindless criticism or mindless praise, and where we see that actual activity, growth and learning is getting smothered. Next, we have to seek out places where we can be encouraged and even pushed towards the Positive. A “positive” space is one that’s happy, universally supportive, and thus saccharine and unreal. And in my experience it cannot create, by pressure and example, the real-world work that we all secretly know we should be doing. You can’t make real things with a relentlessly “positive” environment. But an environment that challenges you to be real and to make things in the real world is inherently productive. And uncommon. And worth working towards, worth putting up with imperfections and annoyances and disagreements as we all learn together.
If you've been following along with these letters you know that I've found online Bazaars to be wonderful places that can create naturally Positive environments. In places where a lot of very different individuals gather to pursue similar goals, you can often find the creative aggression that you need to defy your fear and begin making something real. The thing you have to be prepared for is the messiness of creative work (or any work really). Things not being perfect yet creates enormous temptation to procrastinate or to spend all your time poking away at near-work instead of just getting on with it. Resist this urge! One of the really promising uses of modern web2 and web3 technologies, I think, is the create spaces where potential work, creativity and Positive action can be released into the world. Those who learn to instantiate their "I'd love to someday" and "somebody should really," dragging them kicking and screaming into the real world, will be unstoppable in a world which increasingly insists that nothing can be done or made or fixed. Being around others who think this way is infectious, their example and struggle inspiring you and vice versa. If you find a space like this, treasure it. Be willing to sacrifice to make it grow, and put up with its' idiosyncrasies and imperfections. Step back, take the long view, and get to work.
You can find this kind of comradery in your local hobby meetup, band, homeschool co-op, social club, online gatherings, your church and more. In fact, I would encourage you to dive into all these places! Prioritize spaces that are small, preferably local to you, and where you see that people are making the kind of things you want to make. Then, start doing your own work! Don't wait around to criticise others. In fact, see how you can help those that are deepest in the mess, up to their elbows in fragments and struggling with a half-finished masterpiece. Give them encouragement, but also real feedback. Expect the same from them. Don't hide behind the twin fears of constant fault-finding and relentless faux-happiness. You can be honest, and receive honesty. Then, when you've made something Positive, real and good that didn't exist before, take a moment and enjoy it. But don't stop yet. There's a long road ahead.
WGMI 😎
And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. ~ Hebrews 10:24-25
On valour's side the odds of combat lie,
The brave live glorious, or lamented die. ~ Pope's Iliad