Positive Thi(Pen)NKING

Don't forget to drink your water and have some juice once in a while. It won't kill you. Positive reinforcement and prodding are not the same as positive thinking.

Definition of Penniking - (nothing to do with panicking) it has nothing and everything to do with me. I want to make this a series where I can talk about prevalent mindsets heavily displayed in media and give my opinion or tear them apart for being cliche and boring. People are more three dimensional than states of being or ways of thinking. How people survive and live their lives are picked apart and observed under a microscope to be then blown out of context and put into media for entertainment needs to be discussed.

I have been thinking about this topic for the past hour now. Or was it the past week or month, or year? How can I gather all the brainpower I have spent talking about this subject and compile it into one soliloquy? So welcome to this video. It is produced from the lack of love I am seeing in the people near me and everything happening in the world right now. We are in a dark place that we have been in for a while. Many people are not part of the collective people. The active able people that form the society we live in are upset, and they should be. Everyone should be sad. But that is nothing new. I can't believe I am the one talking about this as well. I have been very fortunate my entire life. I have met great people, I have a loving family, and I am well off. This brings me to the first point, when does thinking become positive thinking?

I have had parts of my life where to get through I ran a belief, a prayer that everything will be alright. In the head of the storm, coming down to the ground, what can you do. That's how it felt for me. I was falling. No one was coming to save me. What kept me from pulling the cord was this. 'Even when you can't get up, stand'. It was a simple way of falling, I saw. Everyone that had contact with the earth was able to stand back up and walk.

This is where I come in with the sad news. You don't have to be falling to become a positive thinker, to want to be optimistic for a change, than realistic. Or so it's said. Sitting in the shower, the moment you wake up but stay in bed. That slim second in between dinners. Those could use some positive thinking. Or at least I have had this experience.

Do you want me to list it all out on the open so you can throw darts at the blown-up balloons that I have set up for you? Fifty years and ago, and 50 years in the future. What do you think my answer would be. To get support, to gather a connect then begin to heal is a leeches purpose. I am not a sucker. I happen to see the darker parts of it: been portrayed in media multiple times, and this is more of what I want to talk to you about. The portrayal of positive thinking in the media. Gosh, this is turning out to be more of an essay on that. But with the magic of editing, it can be whatever I want it to be. I started talking from one prompt. This is the natural direction it has taken, so it is best to follow a road so bright.

The typical positive thinker in the media I am talking about is the crazed trope. The one-shot has lost all personality and has become a single mind, fueled with positivity and aimed at one goal. These are the people that have been hypnotised by positive. No one around them can seem to get them to smack out of it. It's the fact that they've created a life, put themselves into positions where every day is misery. Therefore, whenever the big realisation inevitably happens. This final attempt to sort things out, to get their life together, has failed. They crumble, unable to hold down all the human emotions that drown them. The primary feeling that comes out on top is despair. One small thing does negativity have the same option.

I can see my face getting flustered as a freeze-frame into a pout. However, it does. The problem or the way these two do not connect is that one has a happy ending and one does not. One is alien while the other a familiar. Have you ever felt so down in the dumps, not even a nuclear war can get you off your feet? Meet Jacob, whose life is just not going his way until he meets his fairy godmother of a girlfriend and gets married. Now he is a successful entrepreneur, running multiple non-profits on the side. Wow, amazing. Who wouldn't want to be this guy? More importantly, though, doesn't this guy sound like you? Can you see the mirror we have placed right to him? Not bad. It helps people can't be mad. I am talking about the one that everyone thinks is crazy at first, and then she is brought down to our level, here on earth, living life just like everyone else. You don't get to be happy. How dare you have found this cheat. Talking like this makes me think back on the playbooks in board games and how if it was written in the rules, it wasn't cheating: running on an exploit cant get you kicked out of the game.

One-track mind, there is only one thing that is present. Only one thing matters; focus on it. Lose yourself. Lose your sense of desire, lose the thoughts of feelings, lose the sensation of your skin, lose the connections to your eyes, your tongue, focus on the breath. You are one breathing machine. Focus on the breath. Connect it with the one fact that you know is true. Tie it to your breath in, breath out. Make it inseparable. And move. Move the machine that is your body. And take your goal by the throat by doing all the things you said you would do to make it possible.

Sounds insane, doesn't it, because that's how it is in movies. Human relations are usually fiction anyway, but the control over the mind, how everything works somehow, and how they can communicate with their senses is fantasy. Fantasy for me because I am not them, but everyone else is not like me. Therefore, everyone else must be like them, AND NOOO, this isn't true. You don't have to become this super. You don't need to emulate the screen. You don't need to do any other thing that is going to change you drastically. I want a way to show these people that they are on the right track, that with a little bit of time and perseverance, it will be okay. I know I am losing them. But diligence is doing all you can, and that's it. You've planned out your life; your plan is perfect. You've even found time to watch a movie or two because you can fit its benefits with your schedule. But it is not going away. The monster in the closet you are hiding from is not going away. I hate that I just said that. I have no other way to communicate it. Because then it won't be okay. Maybe I am just lazy. But I see someone going about their life, and they are not happy. I don't know what to say. They are doing all they can and still want more. I wish this could get a little bit religious. But I see no point. It's the same; everybody is okay, right?

Is it time for my positive thinking, what I need to hear, what I need to see is going on with the people around the world,d and most importantly, my family? Do I need to desperately hang onto the tiniest bits of alcohol to keep it going? I don't drink, nor do I smoke, neither did I ever want to. These words are liquidy something swirling in a cup.

I was someone's mother, and now I am not. I was someone's sister, and now I am not. Happy birthday to them both in their graves. I don't get it. I see all of this as pointless. I truly do. I can sit here and whine all I want. I can sit at my window and cry all I want. I can drink and eat ice cream and fries and sink into my sofa as long as I want. I've had that nothing is taken away from me. My job, my friends, and you, the viewer, have filled in the things I thought were broken. I tried my hardest and put myself out there repeatedly. Not because I knew the right thing to do but because it was the only thing I could afford to do in my spare time of beating myself up and treating myself like a monster. And eventually, it paid off; ultimately, it became something. And I was farther and farther away from the place I used to be. That monster comment is funny, you know. I used to sleep under my bed as well. It would have been cute if Cray popped his little head down to check if anything was under the bed. He used to throw anything he could get his hands on under there to check. My baby was fearless and foolish. How many alarm clocks and ruined books had he had to grow through to find an efficient and non-destructive way of scaring the monsters away.

I got used to it, though. Used to the life I'd known being taken away. The person I was working on becoming in the mirror didn't scare me away, and it took over eventually. I started psychoanalysing and talked about how I felt it heavily on the heart and saw an absolute goblin staring back in the mirror. I could also see a charming lady, all straightened out, and it seems like they have their minds together and their lives. And I became that lady and broke the mirror afterwards, leaving the goblin trapped on the other side this time—my heart hurts after that. I think I just did wrong. Oh well.

If this is an essay. Which it is. It means that it needs a worthy essay ending.

My experiences with essays are very different. Thos have beginnings, middles and ends, an argument for and an argument against. Then a conclusion summarises the key points from each discussion in a byline and ends it off with an opinion and a question for the readers to consider. I don't consider myself the essayist type. I haven't got much going for me in that regard. I haven't spent hundreds of hours in school trying to determine the best way to display my argument that points out its weaknesses and distract the reader from noticing the fundamental flaws because of an obvious mistake. You have now won the debate. But you haven't; you've fallen into their trap.

There goes a lot into essay writing. But I am not making the video to discuss the pros and cons, where I have noticed it and where it is taken advantage of, and how uncreative it has gotten. Still, there are exceptions, and so on. I can't figure out when I sat down and pressed record. I remember watching the news, the shows I have consumed in the past year, and the fact that positive thinking has become this cliche in media, something to talk about. I remember that I reared off the edge and came to a stop sign with my own experiences. That was the moment I chose to forget.

Do positive people forget who they are? The archetype is all about reminding yourself who you are and what you are, and everything yours to accomplish. Sure a state of hypnosis is something similar to forgetting. More of a presence of a more powerful force, making yourself feel weak and vulnerable and open to going with the flow. But the point of forgetting ties into the more bustling world out there, affecting more people personally than talking about the positive thinking that ties to the cliches. I think I can make it all tie together nicely. I think I can make a fantastic video out of this- at least watchable. One with a theme and a core message, and a takeaway. I got this.

'Deep breathes, Esabella. The ball isn't going to eat you '. A friend told me that. She was performing in her school play and was afraid to go on the stage. We went to a well of school so the location and theatre room could hold up to 5 thousand people. For children, it's not that hard to relate to and understand how much effort and strength it takes to go up on that stage. Forced to wear weird outfits that were supposed to be cute, to speak or dance, which is what it was the same way they had thought us to—memorising lines. The theatre beforehand was packed with teachers and specially chosen instructors to help each kid perform to the best of their ability set by their parents. It wasn't a friendly environment for the kids, us kids. We were given special attention, pressured by the adults, given so much attention. But we were in the middle of the mess of a play

. The stage statues, pillars and stares scattered around, with the dress-up costumes being maned between each kid. The world felt bigger then. Theatre kids were performing to capture the world, to the audience, this you are what they will be held at that moment, so best not disappoint them. Kids a spec of dust in a moving van not appearing to want nor desire it. But it holds, they hold. For that tiny piece of time, their mind racing with one thing, speak and act the way they taught you, and you will be famous, you will be the star that everybody will love. They will come afterwards, congratulating you, shaking your hand. You made it; you did it. Put some in positions they can't handle, and the brain will take over. All they know is that this is something you have to do, and they do it. It breaks my heart, and I can't stand it. A moment, please. Got it? Do you think that this is a similar way of forgetting?

Acting, I mean. The stage freight, I mean. The anxiety? Positive thinking derived from pressure? Is it more negative thinking because of stress, which is scary, so you switch over to do a 180 and become a positive penny? What am I thinking? Why am I making this video? Is it about me? Positive thinking with no anxiety is poisonous, not the cyanide type but the lava in your throat. Why do this at all? I'm talking about this video and this topic, but also the positive thinking. Why is this a problem? Why is it so heartbreaking when people around us fall victim to this? It drives me crazy that it is called positive thinking.

DON'T THINK POSITIVELY. Doctors say. Doesn't sound as compelling. Convincing the masses is going to take a while. This reminds me of the cartoon. There was one big elephant and a small elephant, the big one was always cheery, and the small one was always mad. They only solved the friends' problems by working together, The sad and the furious, bright and happy. My PSA is over suitable? Did I even explain it adequately? How is this not a video? How many attempts until I get one right. Start again—one short take. Counts as the summary may be used in bloopers; every step counts, even if you fall.

Playing devil's advocate is a dangerous game. I don't think I want to, not necessarily. I want to go lay down and hope that I will be given a golden opportunity to shoot the world's most underperforming, I mean Overperforming video when I wake up. With a whole lot of people like ten plus if possible. I want to lay down and not wake up in the middle of the night for water. But I don't want to wake up to pee either.

I did what I wanted to, brought some awareness to it. Someone needs to save this, so I can see that at least I tried at the end of life. I brought attention to something that doesn't get a lot of light shone on it. I am happy. I am happy. Oh no…