Mechanics of Good and Bad, an Unpredictable Parity (© Iony Smith,
2022)
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“… researchers … analyzed more than 150,000 pop songs released
between 1965 and 2015. Over that time, the appearance of the
word “love” in top-100 hits roughly halved. Meanwhile, … such
songs contained negative emotion words, like “hate” rose
sharply.” and, Unlike her (Taylor Swift) more romantic side
(2006), her “new album, Midnights,” includes: “I don’t dress
for women,” she sings at one point, “I don’t dress
for men/Lately I’ve been dressing for revenge.”
(above, from [with my editorializing] The Rising Tide of Global Sadness, by David Brooks, NY Times, 10-30-22)
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Before running into (like a car crash) the Opinion piece above, I had already formulated what has become my ‘go to’ when attempting to explain the foibles and virtues of the human - the consequences of such actions into conditions and challenges we revisit every day bringing us joy, happiness, sadness, misery, love, hate, you get the idea.
Perhaps admittedly, my own futility in staying afloat of a knee-jerk reaction to the amplification of the darker side of the human enterprise, be it on our streets and neighborhoods (rich and poor), the estrangement from a common, civil value of what is good and not, an environmental dooms day clock, global food insecurity in the 21st century (how?), social media claiming first amendment protections but without the same responsibility to the public, as print/online mainstream media has through lawful regulations.
My angst is but nothing more than a desperate rationalization as for anyone else also struggling in a similar way for providing solace where it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find. Not unlike perhaps, Lincoln’s failed attempt to ward off the American Civil War, by using words (during his inauguration, 1861) he likely knew, would soon fall on the spear of the bayonet, as so many American’s would on the battle field.
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must
not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not
break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory,
stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every
living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the
chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will
be, by the better angels of our nature.
Most of human behavior is shared by all, (so I surmise) - generally doing, feeling and responding similarly to most internal and external stimuli and thus, we carry both the propensity for benevolence and malevolence, with equal parts of positivity and negativity, optimists, pessimists, cynics (and of these, also equal parts of kind and caring).
Along for our ride, as we are all part of this family functional and dysfunctional, there is a smaller percentage of us who act out in ways referred to as deviant and psychologically certifiable (social or psychopaths and other related) - yet, how does the concept of normal even assist in distinguishing that which isn’t, when reasonable people (to say it politically correct) disagree as to what is truth and what is fiction. I've used in the last, few years (and sure I'm not the first or last), we're in a post-truth world.
Yet, most of us seem to swing on or in a pendulum of sorts, an arc or angular acceleration considered to be normal yet with many different manifestations. Where consequential actions (and thinking) move freely and then in an opposing and oppressive direction, before returning and repeating this gravitational motion or equilibrium.
If, as I suggest these intertwined behaviors are in parity, how then can one (good or bad), be determinate or dominate (in total and over time) more than the other, unless one behavior is not also the controlling force of (on) the other? Might human behavior (at both the individual and the aggregate level) play out on a conjoined stage of mechanics, where physics essentially dictate what is beyond human ascendancy and we are NOT in control of our destiny?
As good is simply one variable (or actor) in the same stream of motion and trajectory as that which is the antonym of good, these movements of the pendulum become both free but just as often, jammed or choked, but do proceed back and forth, to and fro, positive and negative yet unlike as might be hoped, dependent on some immutable, physical law, outside the human capacity to resolve.
To concede to the possibility of a less than, optimistic explanation becomes difficult to not engender a loss, lost in not finding a way forward - yet this uncertainty, however threadbare, remains inconclusive and thus also, a potentiality for reaching another conclusion. (Iony Smith, 2022)
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