The light of hope shines on Negativity
For every positive there is a negative and that negative is me
I got up early this morning to do some work in the front yard putting up our festive “negativity scene” creche. While taking a little break, though, something happened…
Every once in a blue moon the internet can wash up on your shore a little piece of flotsam that really makes your day.
“An Australian psychology expert who has been studying emotions has found being grumpy makes us think more clearly.
In contrast to those annoying happy types, miserable people are better at decision-making and less gullible, his experiments showed.”
ZOMG! Yes oh yes oh yes oh yes!
To the guru of negativity I hope you have listened, hmmm.
So, long story short, I went to stumbleupon and narcissisticly searched for “shout abyss.” One of the coincidental results on the first page was an article from the BBC entitled “Feeling grumpy ‘is good for you” – even though the article had nothing to do with me. Now that is what I call the universe working overtime! It’s almost spooky. Connect those dots, universe!
Negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking, paying greater attention to the external world.
— Professor Joe Forgas
According to the article, “sadder people were also less likely to make rash decisions or those based on racial or religious beliefs and made fewer mistakes when recalling a past event.”
It’s always fulfilling to get confirmation of something you knew all along. In fact, that sort of thing is somewhat of a disturbing positive development. I’ll have to work hard to shake this off and get back to my roots.
A series of Negativity Embracement and Integration Seminars are planned. Watch for them online soon, that is if I can make this damn computer work.
First ever Abyss Contest
To celebrate this post, I’d like to try something new here in the abyss. Our first ever photo contest! Yeah!
Subject: Negativity Scene
Interpret the subject as you wish. Perhaps make a statement about the over-commercialization of the Christmas holiday. Whatever. Be creative, think outside the box. What do you think a “negativity scene” would look like?
Submit your photographs as comments to this post. (Or links to your favorite photo sharing site.)
Prize
One winner will be selected and will win the Grand Prize – A self-inking rubber stamp that reads, in two colors (blue and red): “Past Due.” And what could be more negative than that!
Have fun and good luck!
Tater tots with their eyes all aglow
Nothing too heavy for Christmas Eve. It’s sort of like a mandatory break from bitching.
I am proud to say, however, that this year I finally got into the spirit and put up a negativity scene in our front yard. ‘Tis the season ya know!
Encouraging job data sent stocks up to 2009 highs in a shortened holiday session on Wall Street:
New claims for unemployment benefits fell 28,000 to 452,000 last week, the Labor Department reported, the latest sign of improvement in the job market. It was the best figure since September 2008, just before the credit crisis peaked, and better than the 470,000 new claims economists had predicted.
In other tidbits today:
- Stocks pushed higher in December amid “optimism” about the economy
- Orders for durable goods (excluding transportation sector) jumped two percent last month, double what analysts had predicted
- Even with the east coast slammed by recent storms holiday spending appears to be up from last year
- The Senate pased the health care reform bill this morning, voting along party lines – 60-39 – in the first Christmas Eve vote since 1895.
There will be a lot of jabber-jawin’ in the lead-up to New Year’s Eve regarding the “end of a decade.” Whoop-dee-do. For me it was decidedly the worst decade of my life. But I’ve often heard it said that every cloud has a silver lining. If so, for me Mrs. Abyss must be that lining. If this decade hadn’t unfolded the way it did I would never have met her.
If we’re going to insist on the humorous human tradition of measuring time and celebrating integer values, I will grudgingly look to the future in an attempt to put this decade behind me. The beauty of being at the bottom of the barrel is that you can only go up.
The end of 2009 also marks a year where the so-called “bystander effect” got a lot of attention, and deservedly so. In Oct. a 15-year-old woman was gang raped for two hours while as many as 15 to 20 people watched or took part. We need a law that makes every bystander 100 percent guilty of the crime they are watching if they do nothing to stop it.
Yes, 2009 can kiss my ass as well.
For today, however, it is time for celebrations, especially the fact that I don’t have to work in the shithole for four glorious days. Hallelujah!
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!
Shouts from the Abyss 
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