The Positive Thinking Test
AN: I am so sorry I took so long to write this. I won't justify myself. I'm a lazy turd (-.-). To those who persevere, thank you.
Part 4
On a side note to positive thinking, often we find that error in judgement can be a key factor to negativity.
Human beings as a race have an inherent thirst for intellectual superiority that has driven it to great heights and put it above all other forms of life in the world. However, with man's superior knowledge came also a certain complacency; the proverbial stumbling block that hampered him in his great purpose.
The human mentality is that there is an answer to everything. Not knowing something unnerves us. So we solve that problem by pretending that we know it. When faced with a situation that we are not totally certain of, we find ourselves jumping to fast (sometimes incorrect) conclusions in order to quickly fill the void of uncertainty that is opened up.
As far as people were concerned until four hundred years ago, the sun rose and set because we were at the centre of the universe and the sun, moon and stars were quite happy to revolve around us. It was the most logical conclusion for the simple mind to come to and therefore, the worldly accepted one. A comfortable stability was reached in the knowledge that the answer to that question had already been found, and people need not have thought much more into it. To suggest otherwise would have been treason worthy of arrest, because it would have been plunging the world back into its uncomfortable void of uncertainty.
Today, one might laugh at such ignorance and stupidity because it now says in "The History of Astrology" that people back then were ignorant and stupid. One might think that with technology and the advances in modern science, modern man is quite free of making ridiculous mistakes like that.
Au Contraire. People do it still in their everyday lives. Showcasing ignorance, jumping to radical conclusions...
Allow me to illustrate if you will.
If the conservative suburban societyof Kurosaki Ichigo's neighbourhood had known that Kuchiki Rukia had lived for two months in his bedroom closet, there would have been hell to pay. Needless to say, the community would have jumped to rather unsavoury conclusions.
Scenario 3 - Misunderstandings
Kurosaki Isshin, teary-eyed and proud, condones Ichigo and Rukia's secret liaisons but feels a tinge of hurt that his son had not trusted him enough to tell him something so important. As a father, he should have been the first to know when his son's heart had started beating hotly for another. It is as if the brat Ichigo grew up and never told him! His mind churns with doubt and horrific thoughts.
Had his stupid son even known what he was doing? Is one such thought.
Isshin realises that he has never really given Ichigo The Talk up front. He'd trusted, of course, that his son's pubescent hormones would have relieved him of that duty. Having been a teenager before, he knows how powerful a maturing boy's curiosity can be. It seems only natural that Ichigo had found out about the birds and the bees all by himself. It had been inevitable, yet the oldest Kurosaki cannot bring himself to be consoled.
He is not a religious man. But, like many others in times of uncertainty, he finds himself looking to a higher being for his answers.
Oh God, he thinks, does Ichigo even know the responsibilities he would now have to take up? Transition to manhood is a deep and wholly spiritual thing. Did his stupid son even realise the seriousness of his actions? The level of doubt his mind reaches at that point surprises even him.
Oh God, he despairs, had Ichigo been gentle? Isshin knows his son can be rough what with such masculine roots and all, but Rukia is such a slip of a girl...
Oh God, he worries, had they used (he gasps) protection? He doubts he can handle a hoard of little bleached heads of varying fruit-names threatening his masculine authority. The thought of his son procreating at such an early stage in his life nauseates him to quite a degree. He ponders the prospect of grandparenthood and realises that he is not ready for such a huge step in his still-young life.
On and on, his mind works; wrought with anxiety. Ichigo has caused him quite a bit of stress, it seems. He appeals to Rukia, to give him a kind grandchild (preferably female) that will not take after its inconsiderate father. He also makes a note to schedule a check-up with fellow doctor Mimiko-san, the resident ear specialist at Karakura Hospital. He fears his hearing might be deteriorating in his old age. In such a small house, surely he'd have heard something of Ichigo and Rukia's (undoubtedly) untamed fornications
Hurt and tension has been bred amongst family.
At school, Asano Keigo, along with suggestive wiggling eyebrows, comments, "So," to which Ichigo tries not to punch him, "been whitewashing the closet with Kuchiki, have we?" Keigo grins widely but finds Ichigo's fist flying toward his face and, in a rare show of religious humility, takes after the actions of Kurosaki Isshin. ("Oh God-!") Ichigo, for one, had only wanted to still the wiggling eyebrows; but his actions are a prelude to but one of many violent outbursts to come since most of the boys in Karakura High School, hormonal as they are, share the same view as Keigo. Anything can sound like a euphemism for sex if one is paranoid enough and, like any other person who is subject to extreme stress, Ichigo can become paranoid enough.
Ichigo's future has been placed on the line. Suspension from school is one of many punishments exacted on students for violent behaviour and one that does not look good on a permanent record.
The girls in Ichigo's school have varying views. A scarce few frown on Rukia for being loose. The romantics, who make up a great deal of the female population, think she must be rebelling against staunchly traditional parents (which explains why Rukia talks funny) who want to marry her off against her will. Whether Ichigo harbours her because of a secret affection toward her or out of mere pity is the issue of many a debate. The more cynical minority have a variant mixture of the two beliefs. They believe that nothing in this world comes free. Rukia must have been performing certain favours for Ichigo in return for food and lodging.
Doubt and misplaced accusations arise amongst the community.
Arisawa Tatsuki, feminist that she is, becomes enraged at the last possibility. She plans to kick the stuffing out of Ichigo after school if he had dared subject Rukia to such treatment.
More violence ensues.
Old ladies that walk past Ichigo on the streets mumble varying versions of the old "Kids-these-days-why-back-in-my-day" drabbles and Ichigo is put under more stress. It is one thing to be offended and be able to fight back. It's another where old people are concerned. The ladies look about two hundred; so has to Ichigo merely clench his fists and bear the accusations.
Mustering too much self-control is potentially harmful to the psyche.
Ichigo knows he cannot rightly go up to these people and tell them that Rukia really is a Death God who had leant all her power to him and was therefore not able to return to her dimension. Waltzing up to a person and telling them about the 'Happy Place Called Soul Society' is not likely to produce a positive outcome.
Of course, people who actually know of his and Rukia's situation do nothing to aggravate him because they do not jump to shocking conclusions about their disposition (Isshin regardless) . They already have the answers so they see no need to make up their own. This, of course, takes away so much of the agony because Ichigo and Rukia at least know that some people believe them.
End Scenario
Moral: False preaching is speaking without understanding.
So as has been shown in this example, jumping to conclusions caused Ichigo and many others a great deal of unwanted problems and resulted in nothing but negative thinking. The moral presented here is that one needs to see a situation for what it really is before an accurate conclusion can be met.
Log 4 finish.