In the beginning, there was a nameless gray Pegasus pony with silly eyes.
The fans lovingly named this pony “Derpy.”
Months later, the creators of My Little Pony officially named this pony “Ditzy Doo,” and there was much sorrow throughout the fanbase.
Then, on Saturday, the prodigal daughter came home.
In the beginning, there was Family Guy.
Family Guy was a raucous show, full of pop-culture references and humor barely fit for TV. It was novel for its time, and quite edgy in its presentation, but the edge soon wore off (as it usually does in such shows) and its creators had to push the envelope further and further in order to keep the show topical. It was during this time that a hero emerged, and decided to break from the show to form a more family-friendly show that maintained some of the same humor styles as his original project.
His name was Dan Provenmire, and he with a host of cohorts called this new show “Phineas and Ferb.”
Fast forward to the past year. My children, as we surfed through Netflix, spy the unique character designs of Phineas and Ferb, and decide that this is a show they want to watch. The show had already been recommended to me and I’d watched an episode or two of my own accord, and being that I hadn’t seen anything objectionable in the show, I allowed them to watch.
3 seasons later, we eagerly await the arrival of each new episode on Netflix, dreading the day that the powers-that-be decide that the license has expired and pull the show. Imagine, if you will, a show with the humor style and musical numbers of Family Guy, but all-age appropriate. It is a show with a veritable bargeload of pop-culture references and sci-fi / fantasy / spy movie in-jokes, a soundtrack that would make the best Broadway shows green with envy…
…and the best Christmas specials EVER.
If you have kids. If you don’t yet have kids. If you never plan on having kids but love life and all things funny.
Phineas and Ferb is made for YOU.
Plus, in what other show could you hear the line “Why would marathoners be following anyone?… except, you know, 3 guys from Kenya.”
So, I had this post all set up about an issue, and I’m still going to touch on it later, but as usual the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry and all that.
The post was originally going to be about how people who feel that they are stuck in a rut, or have no hope, shut themselves down to any positive influences and react in a violently negative fashion whenever anybody attempts to bring a little light of any kind into that dark area of their life. But then, one of the people I was going to write about came to me with an issue that changed the game… and, to a certain extent, my attitude. So, first, a little backstory.
Without getting too into detail, this individual had a sudden and nonsensical break from a relationship that was to be a forever thing. The manner in which this went down could fill a volume just by itself, so I won’t expound on it much here… except to say that it involved a heavy amount of deceit and introduced an incredible amount of trust issues into the relationship, to the point that the relationship could no longer be maintained. Needless to say, my friend was affected in a bad way by this, but it seemed as though coping mechanisms were in place and the wound was healing. A new job presented itself to my friend, with all those new opportunities and new contacts to network with, and all seemed to be on the upswing ostensibly.
And then, around Christmas, our friendship started to change suddenly. Any comments I made that had any sort of a positive bent to them were met with anger or, at best, mockery. The new job became a subject of misery, and I was told in no uncertain terms that my constant attempts at putting a positive spin on the situation were doing nothing but making things worse. My friend seemed to be getting in a bigger funk all of a sudden, instead of continuing to heal. And then, just after new year, the bomb dropped. An offhanded “how’s it going?” and my response of “going pretty good, looking forward to my first day back to work” caused such an explosion of anger that I was told not to bother contacting my friend anymore until I could get rid of my “fake cheerfulness and fake religion.” Needless to say, it hurt me a lot; partly because I felt I had done something to piss my friend off irrevocably, and partly because I felt that I shouldn’t have to walk on eggshells minding every single word I say around my friends, and if I have to literally lie to my friends in order to accommodate their emotional state, then is it really worth having those friends? But, I respected my friend’s wishes and ceased all contact at that point.
And then, a couple days ago, I get a message from said friend apologizing for the angry outbursts lately, and then I get the confession: Since the breakup, my friend had been spiraling further and further into drug use (specifically oxycontin and later heroin), and it had been affecting both job performance and longstanding friendships because it was making my friend’s emotional state even more unstable than it had been. Finally, at the beginning of this week, my friend blew up at the bossman after the boss voiced concerns about job performance, to the point of a physical altercation. My friend lost their job after the subsequent drug test uncovered recent heroin use, but was graciously offered a position back if a full rehabilitation program was undergone to curb the drug use. My friend accepted, and had basically messaged me to say “goodbye for now” and apologize for the earlier transgressions, confessing that they had been born of a drug-altered mindstate. I was simultaneously happy, sad and concerned; I had an explanation, but I was sad that this had gone on out of sight of everyone for so long (my position on drug use is pretty well-known to my friends, so my friend probably feared judgement or derision from me and others if we were to find out), and concerned for my friend’s well being (heroin is a terribly destructive drug, and I’m not certain exactly how long it was being used in this instance so I’m not sure how much damage was actually done).
And yet, despite the comparatively positive resolution of this issue, I still see such a high degree of negative response to positive messages. I have had two acquaintances break ties with me over this recently; one because of a shared bible verse (atheists and inspirational bible messages, even those that don’t specifically mention God or even faith of any sort, apparently don’t mix…) and one because of a “one positive action per day” that I shared via Facebook through the Christmas season (she mentioned that it was “creepy,” even as others were finding inspiration in the messages). Both of these people were those whose company I enjoyed immensely back in high school, and both of these people had shown a tendency to focus on the negative elements of their life and complain almost constantly about their lives and the things going on around them.
And then today, I see this anti-speeding advert linked on a friend’s page. As usual with YouTube videos that issue a positive message, there are several comments along the lines of “this is f*****g stupid, stop preaching.” All of this just kinda brings to mind that epidemic of resistance to positivity when one is feeling in a bad way. I know it all too well; hell, I’ve been there recently. I used to think that self help books and articles were absolute tripe until I finally swallowed my pride enough to read one. Even having been there, though, I still can’t really understand the mentality. That kind of positivity really can change your outlook on things. You just have to be receptive to it. It worked wonders for my overall mood toward the world in general.
