The Purple Light: The Change-over from Negative to Positive

Saturday, May 18, 2024

The Change-over from Negative to Positive

By Steve Beckow

Posted on May 18, 2024

As I emerge, ascend, and integrate, I find myself navigating the change-over from negative (the troll under the bridge) to positive.

Let me say a word about “being positive” at the get-go.

I’m aware of the objections to “being positive.” I was there myself. I postponed making a needed transition in my life for decades out of not wanting to “be positive.”

One is that “being positive” as a rule flies in the face of reality. We live in a world where negativity exists, where a large percent of the population lives below the poverty line, many homeless, many without access to clean drinking water, etc.

There’s nothing positive about these conditions to those who have to endure them. And being positive in the face of it seems insensitive, self-focused.

Moreover, if we look more generally, I think we’ll see that, if we mandate any line of behavior, we run into trouble with the exceptions. If the exceptions are major, we talk about being abused, oppressed, and exploited.

Werner Erhard warned against taking a side like “the positive.” If we decide ahead of time how we’ll be, no matter how it is, we’ve “de-cided” the matter. We have, linguistically speaking, “killed the alternative.” Transformation usually does not show up in a closed space.

Another objection: In social discourse we talk about positive people as “Pollyannas,” folks who were always looking on the bright side of life, implying naive people or a degree of empty-headedness or compliance.

Now of course I get to see that the Pollyannas take the prize. I’m now aware that they were pioneers who were often unfairly disparaged, fuelled by a source I knew nothing of.

That having been said, I’d like to discuss Monday a very simple conceptual adjustment or tool to help us make the change-over if we – staring the Reval in the face – are needing to do so.