Rainy-Day-Denialism

"In times of hardship, grief, and trial, we can always turn inward and find peace, acceptance, and if you're lucky, a great sense of humor."
-Tadhg Craig

I've been thinking this week, turning over in my mind what I should post about. I thought at first that I could share little nice things I observed throughout my day: a happy song, a friendly smile, a beautiful sunset, etc. I thought this would be rather cliché.

I then moved on to thinking about putting a positive spin on bad things that happened. I have to walk quite far in a short time, but hey! that's a good workout. I did a lot more than needed on an apartment cleaning check, but at least I have a cleaner room now, right?

Well, as it turns out, that thinking is actually kind of really unhealthy. I'm going to term it "rainy-day-denialism."

Rainy-day-denialism is unhealthy (mentally/emotionally, not physically.... well, maybe). It is denying that bad things happen. I'm sorry if this brings back horrific memories of learning the true nature of the Tooth Fairy, but bad things do happen (Ok, so maybe the Tooth Fairy does exist. As long as I get that magic dollar, it's all good). Refusing to recognize them only inhibits your own perception of the world. Rainy-day-denialism distorts reality, and since we're all living in the real world (in the wolf pack) it could get dangerous to have your own everything's-happy-and-perfect-and-if-you-say-otherwise-I'll-pretend-you-don't-exist-or-do-some-other-crazy-thing-we-won't-talk-about-world.

So don't fall prey to rainy-day-denialism! It's bad for your health and your social life.

But then, what should we do? Rainy days don't sound very ideal to me, and unless you grew up in some crazy place where it rains every day and rain is like happiness falling from the sky or something (ok, so I actually did grow up in a place where it rains all the time, and I absolutely love those drops of joys splashing across my face, but for the sake of this explanation pretend that everyone hates rain..... even farmers). Well, let's ask ourselves an important question:

Why are rainy days bad?

(Keep pretending that they are universally not preferred)

I could go into a long dialogue on what exactly the bad part of rainy days is, but that might make this post into a long, boring, and (ahem) bad thing. So.....

Actually, I'll do just that! But I'll keep it short.

Relatively.

Me: Hey other me! How are you?
Other Me: I'm ok, I guess.
Me: Just ok? But why?
Other Me: It's raining. I hate rain. It needs to go die in a hole.
**Me contemplates how rain can get from the sky to a hole in the ground without becoming rain in the interim**

(SIDE NOTE! I should add that it's actually been sunny pretty much all year where I live. We hardly ever get rain. But in Me-Other-Me Land, it's raining. You can probably Google the forecast or something.)

Me: That's a bummer, man. I can't stand the rain either.

**Other Me grunts and plops himself down on a couch, conveniently located nearby**
**Awkward pause in conversation**
**Me and Other Me avoid eye contact**
**Rain patters softly against the window, also located conveniently nearby**
**Other Me sighs heavily**
**Me looks at the ceiling, trying to not look awkward**
**Other Me thinks of Abraham Lincoln**
**Somewhere, a tumbleweed dies**
**The reader notices there have been an awkward amount of action asides**
**Non-acting readers wonder what an aside is**
**Acting readers inwardly criticize me for using the word "aside" wrong**
(I'm not an actor, ok?)

Me: So how about them [local sports team]?
Other Me: Meh.

**More awkward silence**

Other Me: But this rain! I can't stand it! Why does it even have to rain?
Me: Well, I mean, farming and stuff...
Other Me: You're slipping into rainy-day-denialism again.
Me: Oh.
Other Me: But what's so bad about rain? Why do we dislike it so?
Me: Hm...

(Hey look! We've arrived at the point of this whole dialogue.)

Me: I suppose it's because it messes with our inside worlds.
Other Me: Our inside worlds?
Me: Yea! The world inside us. It's like our personal well being, or our mood.
Other Me: So rainy days are bad because they put me in a bad mood?

**Me and Other Me pause and realize they just arrived at a semi-obvious conclusion**
**A tumbleweed blows by**

Other Me: I still don't quite get this inside world thing.
Me: Let me explain. We're idealists, right? Well, I am at least (which by definition means you are too, cause you're Me, even though I'm actually Me and you're Other Me). Being an idealist means that everything works out, works together, and turns out peacefully. Yea, the real world isn't at peace, but being in the wolf pack, we acknowledge that. Our inside world is the one at peace and all.
Other Me: So what does this rain have to do with that?
Me: Sometimes and external something-or-other gets into our inside worlds and starts running a muck. That upsets us, since we like everything to be nice and calm and positive.
Other Me: So something is bad if it runs mucks in our inside worlds?
Me: Something like that.

I don't think I can put it better than Me, but let me restate that in non-dialogue form: We all have inner worlds in which we live. This isn't really our consciousness, but more our outlook on events, and life in general. We're all very comfortable in our inner worlds, since we build them ourselves. However, certain things in the real world can penetrate into our inner worlds and throw off their balance, thus making us uncomfortable, frustrated, and just plain grumpy.

Hopefully this has all made sense. What makes something "bad" is a complex concept, one that I am still striving to understand myself.

Let's go over what we've discussed.

No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

Denying that bad things exist is unhealthy. It leads to rainy-day-denialism, and ultimately can disconnect us from reality. However, if we scrutinize bad things, we can determine why they are bad, and why we dislike them. From there, we can begin determining what we're going to do to combat those bad things, what our "umbrella" is going to be.

I feel another post about that coming.... But let's call it good for now.

***SPECIAL NOTICE: IF YOU FIND YOURSELF SUFFERING FROM EXCESSIVE FROWNING, DISCOURAGING-LOOKING EYEBROWS, EQUAL TO OR MORE THAN 5 SIGHS PER DAY, AND OTHER SYMPTOMS YOU WOULDN'T IMAGINE CHARACTERISTIC OF ONE ON SANTA'S NICE LIST, YOU MAY BE SUFFERING FROM RAINY-DAY-DENIALISM. THERE ARE CURRENTLY NO DOCTORS LICENSED TO TREAT SAID AFFLICTION. RECOMMENDED SELF TREATMENTS INCLUDE CHOCOLATE, FUZZY SOCKS, CANDY CANES, AND CANON IN D, BY JOHANN PACHELBEL.***

Syllabus for Life

"There is beauty all around us. Every cloud, every leaf, every drop of water clinging to grass in the early morning, is beautiful. We need only open our minds to recognize it."
-Tadhg Craig

So yea, blogging. I'm new to this, so let's try and get through this awkward first post. Look at this like the first day of class. I'll lay out my "syllabus," and after this it will be amazingly poetic and intelligent writing only.

(That was a joke - There will be plenty more awkward posts to come!)

Before I can really begin this blog, though, I need to define the purpose. Some people blog to get things off their minds, some to share useful tips with others about some hobby or another. Still others blog as a kind of journal, recounting each day minute by minute, each intimate thought after the other. That's not what Sheep in the Wolf Pack is about. This blog is a little different.

Now, bear in mind that I have not gone through every blog out there (I went through quite a few, trying to find an open domain name), so there may very well be another blog with my purpose as well. What I say to that is: awesome! If you like what you find here, you might as well get double the cool content by reading two blogs.

But on to the purpose.

Our world (to be cliché) is quite pessimistic, and becoming increasingly more so. It seems as though the news loves covering violent and disheartening events. Many of these we should be informed of, but that doesn't diminish their discouraging nature. Every day we hear about more rapes, murders, shootings, terrorist threats, etc. People are mean, and they do mean things.

But not everyone is! In fact, nobody is completely bad. I would go so far as to say there are no bad people, just people that do bad things (which is all of us). So, if nobody's inherently evil, and nobody spends all their time doing evil things, there must be some good things out there, right? I'll let you in on a little secret...

There is a lot of good out there!

Even though they can be mean, people are actually quite nice and generally well intentioned. People still hold the door for each other, they still smile and say hello to each other, and I'm sure somewhere, in some obscure 1950s like neighborhood in suburban America, someone still loans a cup of flour to their neighbor.

And it gets even better! There is good in people, and there is good in everything else too. Like I said above, all we need to do is find it.

That's really what I'm getting at (yes, the whole point I just developed is what Tadhg said in the first line. I suppose you could have skipped to this line and understood everything still...). The point of Sheep in the Wolf Pack is to recognize the beauty in people, things, and events. As the description says, I am an idealist. However, I do in fact live in the real world. I pay bills, I get criticized, I get mocked, and I see the same things happen to others around me. However, I am still an idealist. My quest (mission? objective? purpose? goal?) is to bring a little optimism back into the world, one blog post at a time.

So wipe the metaphorical smudges off your doom-and-gloom glasses (and any smudges off your actual glasses, should you have any) and get ready to see the world through new eyes!