Last week was a weird one consumed with all sorts of heartbreaking news from across the globe. These are stories of real people and it is difficult not to be affected by all this news.
I worry about my family and friends back in India.
Then I see these posts about toxic positivity. Initially, my thought was positivity is positivity; when did it become bad! Then I came to know that people requesting oxygen cylinders and hospital beds on Social Media are mocked as spreading negative news! I also happened to see posts asking to focus on the positive news where people are recovering from COVID so that there will be less death news and more recovery news.
Of course, it isn’t obscuring the lines and keeping everything look neat and pretty for the visitors. Because why air the dirty laundry out in the open!
What irritates me is these are the same people who would ask you to stay positive when someone in the family dies but they would take it to the social media to complain about anything and everything when something disagrees with them. This is what we call a double standard.
Mocking others is now another form of humor or finding the silver line.
My mind gets agitated thinking about all the multiple levels of discrimination and hypocrisy. Is there a point in talking about it? Is there a point in expecting people to learn the damn lessons?! I believe not .
Not as long as we continue to be the privileged fools!
Written for #SoulfulSunday, an exercise to nourish our creative side, formulated by Esha and supported by Shilpa and yours truly
I hear you, Vinitha! I’ve been seeing these too. And you know what, so many things have been getting on my nerves over these past 2 weeks that I could just add them to your list of irks!! You know, it can be so damn irritating to deal with all the bad news that’s coming in from everywhere but that’s how bad things are, at the moment, Our focussing on recoveries cannot take away th pain and shock and desperation of a family that is struggling with sick family members or has been losing near and dear ones. Wonder what makes people so insensitive nowadays? Or is it because they are supporting the government and mentioning the scary but actual statistics shows the real picture of our country right now that is embarassing to all?!
It’s the common man who is helping another out today. To think that people in power who could have done something to prevent this tragedy from happening at this scale were only focussing on the number of votes they’d win is downright shocking and shameful and a slap in the face of democracy!!
The toxic positivity culture is ridiculous. We are allowed to feel scared, helpless, angry etc at these times. I hear you – in some ways we are fortunate but knowing loved ones in India are struggling is hard. I hope your family is is safe and my DMs are always open for a chat x
Precisely why I uninstalled Twitter from my phone, and am glad I am unable to frequent FB.
Be it positivity or negativity, social media can be one place that tortures the mind. I now just keep myself occupied in my Soduku and Scrabble games on my phone. I don’t want to know what’s going on in the world coz I have a pretty good idea of how miserable it is out there. I also know it’s full of good people who go out of their way to help. I have experienced both , the good and the bad these past ten days and learned a lot from it. Feel so blessed to have angels helping me stay sane and feel protected.