All Good Things… Pants On Fire.

1st June 2020

Hello Chaps and Chapettes.

I don’t know quite how to approach this second entry in any other way than to tell you that I’m a big ol’ liar.

Always have been it seems, from the days I told small fibs (that’s lies to my US pals) about not hitting my brother as a kid to when I said I definitely completed that report for work, while just starting it. It seems that one filthy untruth leads to another and I don’t quite know how to stop it or even if I should at all.

Maybe I should explain why that’s the first thought on today’s thirty-minute topic. Yesterday I said that I wanted ‘All Good Things…’ to be exactly that, nothing but the good things in life. I want this because I feel there’s too much negativity easily spread in the world, made easier by humanity being able to type out their misgivings on a device they always have with them and send it where the world can view it and respond. I don’t want to be another mouthpiece for that, it feels that the only way to beat that is to spread and encourage goodness.

The positive effects of that are profound, which you will already know if you’ve seen the archived works of Bob Ross, Fred Rogers, or Steve Irwin. There are humans out there, from times gone by and working hard today, who want or wanted nothing more than people to be safe, happy and free. They have not pushed that message but spread it gently, and it continues to spread as gently as a happy little cloud.

The reason why I feel I lied in my blog yesterday, however, is because as much as I want to be, I do not believe I can always embody the message, ‘All Good Things..’ because that feels like a goal only the strongest, most caring people can reach. I feel I’d have to do something impossible, which would be to see some light in every dark thing that happens in the world and there are so many dark things where the light is unclear.

Ordinarily, at this point, I’d turn to my favourite quote from a certain elder wizard, who said “Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.” (Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, 1999, spoken by Dumbledore) The trouble is, where do you start? By finding the metaphorical light switch or magical lighter one supposes, or remembering how to pronounce ‘lumos!’ but where is that in the real world? That’s the question that always seems to trip people up.

My answer is simple - focus on what makes you happy, which also does not harm or upset people, and build from that. I do dislike that in today’s world I feel I have to put in that disclaimer, to avoid the one person who says ‘well, I love butchering people and wearing their faces as masks,’ to which I have to explain that isn’t what I meant as I slowly back towards the nearest exit. This is what I call the ‘bad wish complex’ - where you ask for something only for the most rotten version of that thing to come true, like hoping for all the candy in the world and get it, only for all of your teeth to fall out two weeks later.

This is why focusing on good things only is hard. It does not help that, when you ask a conglomeration to offer good things on a social media platform, there’s nothing at all offered and maybe a like or two if you’re lucky. Yet, say the name of the US President once, and every Tom, Dick and Hillary will pop up to tell you their thoughts on the situation. The reality, it seems, is that the world needs good things, but wants worse things, because it runs out of things to talk about afterwards. That is how it seems from this viewpoint.

Then, how do you proceed when facing an audience of empty chairs, while you can hear the auditorium across the road making loud noises about grief and suffering to a lamenting crowd? How do you deal with the knowledge that they might smile once or twice if they avoided that and focused on the images and stories of people doing good things for the world, for the animal kingdom, for each other? They answer, I feel, is that you just keep a focus on it.

From the start, you cannot do it for others, you have to do it for yourself. As soon as you expect that people will like or be interested in anything you do, you’re destined to be upset. The human race as a whole has a very limited attention span and as soon as you… Hey, have you heard the new Lady Gaga album? What? Oh, sorry… got distracted.

The point is, the best way to share goodness is to do what makes you feel good first and foremost. With the above ‘NO AXE-MURDERING’ caveat in place. As soon as you show that you are enjoying what you are doing, then people will start to gain a bit more interest in it. From that small gathering, you can then start to share ideas that inspire hope and encourage them to share those ideas too. They don’t have to be preachy - think about it. Mr Ross shared his message with happy little trees. Mr Rogers shared his with his neighbors, no matter what colour or ability. Mr Irwin shared his fascination of the creatures he met.

The world has so many ways of offering a light to the darkness, and since my time is up for today, I’ll have to leave you with the words I hope will shine through the dark times ahead too.

All good things,

Love, Scaramouche.

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