Negativity Does Not Make You Cool

I took my oldest daughter Leslie to see The Force Awakens last Saturday. 

I saw in her 11 year old face wonder and excitement and fear and respect for a character she could identify with. 

For me, I was able to go back to being a child, to a world that brought out those same emotions I saw in my daughter when I was her age. 

It was not the deepest movie I ever saw, nor was it the most scientifically accurate, and the characters did not do completely rational things at every turn. Some things even had the audacity to be (gasp) unbelievable. 

Unbelievable and irrational acts in a sci-fi movie. 

Well, I never.  

Yet for the last few days I have seen a constant flood of "fans" gripe about every single thing. "How could character X do all that stuff so quickly?"  "Who would ever think it was a good idea to use that strategy again?"

Self-proclaimed nerds seem to be falling all over themselves to rush to point out imperfections. 

To the folks doing this, I say, "This is why you can't have nice things."

As a culture, we seem to be obsessed with pointing out the negative. We feel we are smarter by catching the inconsistency, or we are more enlightened because we see the flaws. 

Then we complain that we cannot enjoy things, we complain that all the news ever shows is negativity. 

Gee, I wonder why?

Please stop for a second, and ask yourself- does looking for the negative actually make you feel better?

I'm a recovering pessimist. While I am still cautious in my trust of people, I want to see the good in the things I seek out for entertainment and in the new things I try in my profession. I get frustrated with people who focus on the negative, because despite their claim that they do not want to take away my enjoyment, there constant insistence on "exposing the flaws" comes across as a kind of evangelism to the negative. And when I point out that I don't agree with/am not bothered by their identified flaw, well, let's just say they imply that I am less than intelligent in my opinion. 

A focus on the negative is such a lesser thing to be caught up in. And getting caught up in catching the flaws in one aspect of life is very contagious to the other parts. 

My daughter's interest in Star Wars has exploded since Saturday. That means we have had discussions and long conversations about aspects and details of the movie. She wants to see it again. 

Not so she can point out flaws, but so she can once again get caught up in the wonder of a spectacular new galaxy where there are battles over things of consequence between good and evil. 

You know, like we did when we were kids and didn't care how many times the Death Star blew up or how whiny character X was. 

Because the joy was in the imagination and the new worlds unfolding before us. 

When we lose that childlike wonder for our "adult-required" cynicism, we've already gone over to the Dark Side.