Negativity was interpreted negatively in this article. It shouldn't be. Negativity can be positive.
Cultivating dissatisfaction is key to doing good work. If you can't bring yourself to say "Man, this sucks, I could do better than that" how will you try to do better?
In fact, research shows people who are motivated more by the fear of loss rather than the hope of gain, in other words, defensive pessimists, are better prepared to handle the obstacles that get thrown in their path. Being negative is the strongest motivation for these people.
The irony of it is humans being wired for negativity sounds like bad news for the optimists. But there's a way to model optimists in terms of negativity too. Optimists have what Keats referred to as high negative capability: they are capable of "being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason".
As a practical matter, I think it helps to honor both the negative and the positive. Be negative when you are figuring out what you want to fix that's broken, and be positive about bringing yourself to actually do it.
Let's say I am negative about how the DMV handles my paperwork for whatever I need to dance through with them. I arrive "over prepared", just to be sure.
... and I arrive to find the DMV haplessly in worship of Saint Kafka.
By my negativity [distrusting an organization to do their job and have themselves together enough to tie their own shoes] I made the process better by arriving "over" prepared.
-- "the act of making your thoughts, feelings, etc., known by speech, writing, or some other method"
Notice the word "known" in the middle of this definition. Known by whom? The person expressing the ideas already knows them. Therefore by definition one is making oneself known to a second party, someone other than the speaker.
... and internal verbalization is also often considered as a form of expression ...
Not as the word is defined and commonly understood.
Sure you are. When speaking internally people set up a "mirror" of themselves, speaking as if to another person (despite any internal pronoun use like "I").
If someone yells something in the forest, they are speaking to, variously, a personification of nature, the world, a god, themselves (as described above), or perhaps more literally an imagined companion.
Expression is not about the effect but the intent, even if it's subconscious.
-- which doesn't have a widely accepted resolution. The tl;dr: arguing that another hypothetical person is present by reference to the mind, is a non-starter, except among psychologists.
Comments
Negativity was interpreted negatively in this article. It shouldn't be. Negativity can be positive.
Cultivating dissatisfaction is key to doing good work. If you can't bring yourself to say "Man, this sucks, I could do better than that" how will you try to do better?
In fact, research shows people who are motivated more by the fear of loss rather than the hope of gain, in other words, defensive pessimists, are better prepared to handle the obstacles that get thrown in their path. Being negative is the strongest motivation for these people.
The irony of it is humans being wired for negativity sounds like bad news for the optimists. But there's a way to model optimists in terms of negativity too. Optimists have what Keats referred to as high negative capability: they are capable of "being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason".
As a practical matter, I think it helps to honor both the negative and the positive. Be negative when you are figuring out what you want to fix that's broken, and be positive about bringing yourself to actually do it.
[deleted]
Let's say I am negative about how the DMV handles my paperwork for whatever I need to dance through with them. I arrive "over prepared", just to be sure.
... and I arrive to find the DMV haplessly in worship of Saint Kafka.
By my negativity [distrusting an organization to do their job and have themselves together enough to tie their own shoes] I made the process better by arriving "over" prepared.
[deleted]
There's no mention of external in that definition though and internal verbalization is also often considered as a form of expression...
If you shout in the forest and nobody hears you; are you not still expressing your self?
No, because this fails the definition of "expressing yourself". An expression is defined as --
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/expression
-- "the act of making your thoughts, feelings, etc., known by speech, writing, or some other method"
Notice the word "known" in the middle of this definition. Known by whom? The person expressing the ideas already knows them. Therefore by definition one is making oneself known to a second party, someone other than the speaker.
Not as the word is defined and commonly understood.
Sure you are. When speaking internally people set up a "mirror" of themselves, speaking as if to another person (despite any internal pronoun use like "I").
If someone yells something in the forest, they are speaking to, variously, a personification of nature, the world, a god, themselves (as described above), or perhaps more literally an imagined companion.
Expression is not about the effect but the intent, even if it's subconscious.
Your explanation would require resolution of the mind-body problem --
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_problem
-- which doesn't have a widely accepted resolution. The tl;dr: arguing that another hypothetical person is present by reference to the mind, is a non-starter, except among psychologists.