The Purge

The Purge

Welcome Stumpers,

to the good vibes only zone. Come along with me on a journey to awesomeness while improving your life, your mind, your body and your soul with a thorough and complete cleansing. Now is the time to rid ourselves of negativity in our lives. You don’t need negative people or influencers pulling you down with them. If they don’t affirm you and all of your most ardent desires, or make your sandwiches and give you orgasms, flatter your taste and intelligence, block them, delete them, ignore them and feel free to abandon with abandon. It’s time to manifest only positivity by adding subtraction to your life. If you can’t identify the immediate benefit that a loved one brings to your individual goals it’s time to re-examine that relationship.

Grandma doesn’t like your vegan gluten free baking? Maybe you don’t need to visit her anymore.

Don’t like awkward encounters with strangers? Wear headphones all the time to signal to the world you have more important things to hear

Is that old friend of yours asking for too much emotional support? Stop taking her calls.

You can make every moment of your life feel like those last few warm engrossing minutes of your yoga class. All can be perfect tender and toasty like a fresh beignet. You can be filled with boundless self esteem. All doubts can be eliminated. Don’t worry about hurting others in your pursuit of creating a perfect bubble of self reflection free positive re-enforcement.

Stumped Mom I think You’re laying it on right now!

Hell’s yeah I’m laying it on right now. I don’t care if my weak attempt at satirical tone is as subtle as a flying brick. I am sick to death of social media, celebrities regular media and people all around me in my life acting like the way to cope with all of the friction in our lives is to avoid it. As if we can ignore away every uncomfortable interaction or piece of feedback and experience no negative consequences.

You know who was a real fucking buzzkill? The soothsayer in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. What did that guy say?

“Beware the Ides of March!”

What a douche, that guy.

While Caesar. He was a real go getter- the grand conqueror of the Gauls. Like a Goop blog regular he knew what to do about killjoys.

“He is a dreamer; let us leave him: pass.”

That’s modern English for “Press Ignore.”

You are also pretty welcome to ignore the obvious lesson here. Shakespeare knew as did countless other sage observers of humans that we need naysayers in our lives to to guard us from our own conceit. We cannot get out of our own heads to see ourselves completely. We need the help of others not only to lift us up but to reign us in. Everything we do and say is warped by our individual perceptions and petty desires. It feels good in the short term and maybe even in the medium term to block out criticism, to don our rose colored glasses and apply a Snapchat life filter to our world, especially when we feel beset by an endless deluge of negative crap. But what becomes of us when we crop out all of our “negative relationships”- When we limit our interactions to the ones that are immediately gratifying?

One of the accelerating negative narratives of our time is the epidemic of loneliness. Powered by social media and social anxiety, Americans are becoming increasingly isolated from real connections. Somehow, in the face of all of this, there is a proliferation of popular advice and attitudes that encourage, people, especially women, to ignore or eliminate interactions with other people. Good Vibes Only is blanketing the world with the suffocating demand that all friendships are predicated on a commitment to constant flow of positivity.

A few weeks ago I was kvetching about my ex-husband with my oldest friend and she agreed completely with my perspective on things. I asked her if she was only agreeing with me because she’s my bestie. I cannot begin to say how refreshing it was to hear a very dear friend say to me, “If you’re wrong it’s more loving of me to call you out on it.” And that is why we’ve been friends for over 25 years.

Setting boundaries is great. Encouraging one another is awesome. But demanding constant unconditional approval from all of our relationships is leaving a lot of us with a dearth of friends to turn to. We’re ghosting ourselves into an empty corner full of hollow sycophants and profiteers. Maybe it’s time to consider addressing negativity through addition. Meet negative with positive and hold off on the purge.