First post

All thoughts welcome!

My first posting about this.

I have been thinking about maintaining a blog post to write down my thoughts, my analyses, my feelings, just a general diary of sorts. And here it goes.

So, this was something my husband and I was talking about some time ago. Why do most prize winning books have a pathos element in them, as the main theme? Life is gray, neither black nor white. Life is a teacher, not a  walk in the park. Life sucks at times, but we manage to rise to our challenges. When we manage to sit down and look back, we have quite a few fond memories to recollect. And these days, the magic potion to life's problems seems to be mindfulness and being present. Stop and smell the flowers, something like that. When all self-help screams about being present, finding happiness, being grateful and content, why do mostly books with a bleaker theme find a great audience amongst the critics?

My take on it: 

Our emotions can be categorized as positive or negative. Feeling happy, content, at peace, joyous, compassionate, empathetic are on the positive side. While feeling jealous, moody, sad, angry, frustrated, disgust, shame are on the negative side.

For someone to have related or be moved by any piece of art, it should have evoked some emotion in the person - positive or negative. 

We humans, mostly remember the negative words hurled at us by anyone. Where the person insulting or speaking negative about us has an influence or not, we will go as far out as to seek the one negative comment about us. Negatives tend to stick to us, even when a pile of positive was dished alongside. Similarly, I believe negative memories tend to stick with us for longer than uplifting ones.

Now, the point of having presented two tangential thoughts: Given that negative experiences tend to be remembered for longer, its easier to relate to story of that genre and appreciate it better. And all of us have had some sad, frustrating, angry, jealous episode or the other. It is easier to see ourselves in another person's shoes when the character is feeling so.

One the other had, there are books that speak of positive emotions as well. To be able to relate to another's happiness is a lot more difficult than not. To be able to feel content in one's own shoes takes a lot of effort and work on oneself. So to feel empathetic about another person's positive emotion is quite challenging. 

I see these sets of emotions as having been calibrated on the vertical tower of a high striker - with the negative emotions at the bottom half and the positive ones at the top half. In that case, when one takes a hammer or mallet to the puck on the high striker, it takes lesser effort to hit the negative ones and a lot more effort to hit the positive ones. 

I may have over-simplified the reasons, but that is the image that pops into my head when I think of this topic.