Too often to suit me, I've been referred to as a negative person. "Sarcastic" and even "cynical" have been used to describe me with pretty much the same frequency that other folks are called "nice" or "sweet."
I really don't get that. I don't see myself as negative. I do see myself as a staunch realist. I am stubbornly unwilling to stick a big shiny bow on a rather obvious disaster and go "There! All better!"
Am I cantankerous? If you insist. Curmudgeonly? I'm honored. But does that make me a negative person, or just a healthily skeptical, astutely critical one? It's not as if I'm fervently campaigning on Facebook for a DISLIKE button. (You know who you are . . . ) And how does one argue with such an untenable accusation? I mean, if you call me a negative person and I reply, "No, I'm not!" aren't you then going to say that since I'm not agreeing with you, it just goes to show how negative I am?
I'll admit to being a born contrarian, but most often of the John Locke "Don't tell me what I can't do!" school (for all the "Lost" fans, of which I am one). I especially don't like to be told to feel something I genuinely don't feel. When aimed at me abruptly and without solicitation, the words "Cheer up!" and "Smile!" rarely evoke the desired result. I recall reading the quote-- admonition, really-- "Be nice" on the Facebook profile of a well-known Knoxville blogger. I don't know why it is, but shit like that always makes me not want to be nice. Rather, I want to reply, "Who the hell are you, my Sunday School teacher? Fuck you!"But enough with the defensiveness. If you must think of me as negative, I'd prefer you do it in the photographic sense. Photo negatives aren't entirely darkened images, of course. They're merely reversed, a contrasting view.
For months now, friends have been saying "You should write a blog!" This reminds me of the time when a woman in the beauty salon chair next to my friend Anne strongly encouraged her to become a stripper, assuring Anne, "You got a real good body, honey! You oughta strip!" Can't be given a much more back-handed compliment, in my opinion. What an awful thing to say! How dare you?! Do I look like the type of person who would write a blog??
All I mean to say is, there are a lot of really lousy blogs out there, and my initial thought about writing one was that I had no business dumping one more load onto that growing pile of Internet crap. And besides, so many bloggers I've read just reek of meMeME desperation when sharing their every mundane thought and pushing their inflated opinions of themselves. On this one guy's blogger profile I read, he described himself as "a writer of Dreams, an Embroiderer of Reality." To me, that's just a fancy way of declaring "I am one of the most pretentious assholes who's ever sat down at a keyboard."
And then I happened across an essay by Frank Bruni in the online edition of The New York Times titled "Harry, We Hardly Knew Ye." Bruni expressed a sense of relief that the final Harry Potter movie had been released. Not a fan of the books or the films, he professed not to hate them but, due to a number of circumstances, he just never got into them. And this set Bruni and many others at odds with their contemporaries, "standing apart from a cultural phenomenon that so many embrace," as he put it. Bruni went on to apply this to other cultural phenomena in which some of us just don't have the slightest bit of interest. Whatever you refuse to buy into-- be it "Star Trek" or Starbucks, Jonathan Franzen or "Jersey Shore"-- Bruni opined that "all of you have been there, on the outside of some mass-market craze or niche obsession that seemingly two out of every three people you know won't shut up about, their exuberance a sort of reprimand for what you're missing." Further distilling his thesis, Bruni wrote, "The fervor with which others latch onto a new enthusiasm makes you triply conscious of your own decision not to, so that even if your choice reflects only the limits of time, budget, or energy, you treat it as a declaration of independence. You are what you're not."
Now that I totally get. I remember watching an episode of "The Dick Cavett Show" sometime in the 70s on which actress Candice Bergen stated, without a trace of arrogance and to her host's apparent astonishment, that she had never eaten a McDonald's hamburger. I admired Candice Bergen immediately, though I didn't share her specific anti-fast food stance, and have since marveled at how much an unexpected factoid like that-- expressed in the negative, if you will-- can reveal about a person. In our modern world of too many choices and apparently endless options, "Who are you?" is for some of us a more difficult question than "Who are you not?" If you consider it, this would seem to be a part of human nature. Even though young children may not yet be able to articulate all of their needs, they can usually, by God, tell you what they don't like.
And so, with Frank Bruni and Candice Bergen as my inspirations, I decided to just relax and take a decidedly negative approach to launching my new blog. What follows is not at all a Bucket List, nor is it meant to be a display of Ayn Rand-ian merit badges. Many of the items have to do with personal taste, but some of them just, well, never happened.
If you know me, or know anything about me at all, pretend for a moment that you don't. Then check out how much you can learn about somebody by looking at the negative.
* I have never had a broken bone.
* I have never watched an episode of "American Idol."
* I have never voted for a Republican candidate in any political election.
* I have never purchased a copy of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.
* I've been to several countries in Europe, but in the U.S. I have never traveled west of Dallas, Texas.
* I have never sat through "Gone With the Wind" in its entirety.
* Up until about 4 months ago, I have never not owned a dog.
* I have never met my birth mother or birth father, or anyone (to my knowledge) who is my genetic relation.
* Although I'm a graduate of the University of Tennessee, I have never attended a UT football game, or UT basketball game, or any other UT sports event.
* I have never uttered the words "Oh boy, chicken wings!"
So as for this blog, I can't tell you what it's going to be. I can tell you what it's not going to be. It's not going to be a political blog, though I'm sure I'll get political on occasion. I might now and again tell you about some place I ate or a dish I fixed, but it's not going to be a foodie blog. For obvious reasons, it's not going to be a Mommy blog, or even a Daddy blog.
I merely aspire to share my enthusiasms with you, if in my own negative way. To show you who I'm not and possibly encourage you to think about who you aren't as well.
Just keep in mind that the negative image of a photograph is fundamentally necessary to produce a positive image. You can't truly appreciate the light without the darkness.
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