I hate positive affirmations and I always have. In the past, I haven’t quite been able to articulate why although I could say what I thought the effects of it and toxic positivity/individualism in general were. It makes it very easy to blame the masses for problems that start at the top. Let me explain. Telling people to vote and that each vote makes a difference is under this umbrella. Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t vote and in the general sense, yes, each vote matters. But the emphasis around election time on each individual vote is disingenuous because in the end, it’s the system that matters more than the individual votes. So, yes, I can do my civic duty and vote (which I have), but that’s just propping up the status quo. Yes, it’s urgent to get this president out of office, but his presidency has outlined many of the problems with the system in general and how we take for granted that the president will act like a normal human being with a sense of decency.
Look. Does he need to be shunned from polite society? Yes. Should he ever have been made president? No. In fact, his being president highlights another problem with the system–how the Electoral College is an antiquated system that needs to be refined or trashed completely. But, with the exception of Obama, I haven’t been excited to vote for any of the Democratic candidates on the ballot for president. I’ve done it, of course (except voting for Nader instead of Clinton in 1996 after waiting to see enough returns to realize Clinton would carry MN), but being told that it’s more important to have any warm Democratic body as president rather than to have a GOOD Democrat as president is an indication of a broken system.
It’s difficult to fix a whole political system, however. It’s much easier to place an outsized sense of importance on each individual vote AND it’s easier to feel satisfied you’ve actually done something by voting rather than working on improving the system which may or may not be a lost cause.
But we were talking about positive affirmations. Faking it until you’re making it. Maybe it works for other people. In fact, I’m sure it does. For me, however, any time I’ve tried it, it just makes me feel worse about myself. I couldn’t say why, exactly, except that I get really stuck on the truth. It’s both a strength and a weakness of mine, but it comes from having very unreliable narrators for parents who made me question myself and my history. My mother has a habit of looking at the past through rose-colored glasses and in remembering stories in a way that paint her in the best light possible.
Side note: I’ve realized that most of my immediate family, including me, is likely on the spectrum somewhere. My brother for sure, my mother has admitted that she feels she is, and my father is…well, not on the spectrum but a raging narcissist. For his last birthday which coincided with the Mid-Autumn Festival, he made a big deal of it in a Zoom call with my mother and brother two weeks before the actual day. My mother had to play into it, of course, because she’s his number one enabler, and both my brother and I didn’t really have much to say about it. Then, they called me on my father’s birthday so I could wish him a happy birthday. I had already sent him an ecard, but heavens forbid we let it pass without making a big fuss about it. At the end of the conversation, my father asked me what I would be doing to celebrate his birthday which is him in a nutshell.
I mean, I don’t even celebrate my own goddamn birthday, so why the fuck would I celebrate his? Not to mention we’re in the middle of a goddamn pandemic so what exactly was I supposed to do to celebrate even if I were so inclined which I most definitely was not?
Side note to the side note: It’s really frustrating talking about the pandemic with my parents. They live in Taiwan where there have been seven deaths. Seven. Their government had learned from the SARS outbreak and was really proactive in shutting shit down hard back in February/March. Their methods would not fly in America for both valid and not-so-valid reasons, but as a result, my parents cannot fathom what it’s like in America. I had a meltdown a few months ago when my mother mentioned coming here for Christmas because my father was bored and lonely. They mentioned wanting to go to a hotel in Duluth with the family and going to my uncle’s 80th party in Seattle with the whole family. I mean.
I leave the house once a month to get my meds. I mean, I go out a few times a day to take a few drags on a cigarette, but actually leaving the house grounds is once a month. Would my parents adhere to that while here? No. I know my father. He would want to go out several times a week because that’s how he is.
Anyway, my mother has this habit of ‘not remembering’ negative things she’s said or done. She has a truly terrible memory so I’m not saying it’s not possible, but it’s awfully convenient for her. For example, I graduated magna cum laude from college and she said if I hadn’t gotten a B in my Intro Psych class, I could have graduated summa cum laude. I had been proud of my magna cum laude until she said that. When I brought it up years later, she denied she had ever said it. It drove me crazy because I could still bring up the recollection in my mind. After she denied it for several minutes, she said if she *had* said it, she must have meant it as a comfort to me if I was feeling bad about it.
Right. Do I think she actually forgot it? Yes. Does it make it any better? No. Also, my point is that she’s a serious gaslighter even though it’s not her intention. Once I realized she was an extremely unreliable narrator, that made me feel better internally. It didn’t stop her from rewriting history, but it stopped me from feeling so crazy.
Why am I mentioning this? Because I had a revelation a few days ago about why positive affirmations made me so uncomfortable–it’s me gaslighting myself. “I’m a good person and I love myself.” Well, I don’t believe the first and I certainly don’t adhere to the second. Saying it over and over isn’t going to make it magically true. In fact, with the way my brain works, I’ll just push back harder on it.
It was interesting because in taiji class yesterday, my teacher mentioned that one of the masters would say that everyone should say ‘I am a master’ and that it would one day come true as a way of putting what you want to happen out into the atmosphere. I flinched, but then she followed it up by explaining that it’s to counter saying ‘I can never learn that’, ‘I’m awful’, and other thoughts like that. I could understand that, but it seems like a false dichotomy especially when she went on to explain that what she meant was that she didn’t want people to put themselves down and not think they couldn’t achieve whatever it is they wanted through taiji (paraphrasing). I agree, but that’s not the same as saying ‘I am a master’.
Like I said, I get stuck on the words sometimes. Saying ‘I can become a master if I work hard at it’ is very different from ‘I am a master’ to me, but I understand that the sentiment can be the same to some people. This is why I think I might be somewhere on the spectrum. I tend to be literal when it comes to words being vocalized. Like I said, it’s partly because of my mother’s very unreliable narrative, but it’s also just something in my brain that can’t get past, ‘But you SAID this and not that’.
Side note II or III depending on how you look at it: My teacher also said another thing a different master said about his abilities–that he wasn’t special. That anyone could do what he did–with a shit-ton (paraphrase) of practice. My teacher’s point was that he wasn’t superhuman which I think some people tend to view him as, but my brain got stuck on the fact that he *is* special because 99% of people won’t put in that kind of practice. No, he’s not superhuman, but he is in the upper echelon of people who practice taiji. It’s the same when people who love Dark Souls say anyone can beat it. Technically true (barring disability, I mean) and I am the walking epitome of this adage. I love the games, but I hated the first one after finishing it the first time. If I weren’t so stubborn, I would have given up several times along the road. Therefore, I understand why some people hate it or can’t get into it.
Yes, most everybody could finish the game if they put in an inordinate amount of time and effort into doing so. Should they? Only if they want to. No amount of pushing from someone else is going to do the trick. Same with taiji. Yes, theoretically anyone can become a master with enough time and practice. Most people will not have that dedication and that’s just a fact of life–absolutely no shame in that. When I first started taiji, I went to one class a week, begrudgingly, and refused to practice at home. I added a second class because I wanted to be able to progress faster but didn’t want to practice at home. When I started a home practice, it was five resentful minutes a day and zipped through as quickly as possible. I didn’t like it; it was something to be endured. It was mostly stretches and warmups at that point.
Now, it’s a half an hour to forty minutes depending, and it’s mostly weapons. I’ve learned the Sabre Form and now am concentrating on the Double Sabre Form (in taiji). Lots of double sabre drills and I’m digging it so much. The other forms I’m focusing on are outside of taiji–Deerhorn Knives from Bagua and the Karambit Form which is a standalone form. Yes, my teacher had to push me into trying the sword for the first time, but from the minute I held one in my hand, I was hooked. As for the sabre, I hated it the first time I learned it. I had to set it aside for two years before picking it up again. Now, I really enjoy it. I don’t love it like the sword, but I truly appreciate it as a weapon. The double sabre is more my jam because I get to be a human blender.
My point is that for me, I have to tell my truth as I see it. I can’t say I’m a master because I know it’s bullshit. I can say I’m really enthusiastic about the taiji weapons (and other weapons) and have a strong proclivity towards them and a base proficiency in them. I can say that I love them and in general, I’m pretty damn good at them. That’s real and true to me. And it’s the best I can do for now.