Not Good Is Not Necessarily Bad
I love how people make their own assumptions instead of actually listening and hearing what is said. How come when someone says that something is not good, we assume that it is bad? I mean, if I say that it is not green, people don't think that it must be red, do they? We don't have in-between anymore. We don't understand how something can be both beautiful, ugly, smart, and dumb. We are too busy to learn complex stuff so we just assume the easiest.
Whenever I say that I am no good, I don't mean to say that I am bad. I mean to say that I am no good. And there is a massive difference in this. However, last time when I tried to say that the girl was not beautiful, it did not go well... Just joking, the reality is that no girl even wants to talk to me. Damn...
But seriously, why we don't have normal in our lives anymore? Why don't we have average anymore? This world is so crazy that being average is becoming awesome already. Because everyone else is either good or bad, black or white, smart or stupid, beautiful or ugly. And I am average. I am constantly moving from one side to another. I am living.
And next time when someone tells you that you are no good, don't assume that you are bad. Always listen to the exact words that you hear.
It's like marmite, you either love it or you hate it. Personally I think it's just alright.
I know what you mean about the limitations of simple black and white thinking. One of my family members drives me nuts with it. You're either 100% with me or you must be 100% against me, if my life isn't perfect it must be piss and shit, etc. It systematically destroys relationships and brings misery and self-loathing to the individual.
I've seen some interesting research actually that looks at how complex versus simple thinking can be linked to political ideology, whereby more conservative leaning people tend to prefer simple straight forward narratives, whilst more liberal leaning people tend to grapple with complex concepts. I can certainly relate this to the gradients of political spectrums evident within my own social circles.
I think black and white thinking can also serve as a sort of defence against the world. It's not hard to see how simple black and white thinking could have been (and still be) beneficial for individual survival. If you can quickly designate someone as friend or foe according to your designated social constructs then you can rapidly decide how you should act with that person and know what tribe you need to associate yourself with. Or if you need to take quick action in a life-or-death situation it does no good to sit around contemplating the complex nuances of the situation you are being faced with.
But as with many primal defence mechanisms if not controlled it can destroy your life and it pops up in psychology quite a bit discussing various disorders. For example it can be associated with extreme depression (my life must be so extremely shit because it's not the utopian perfection I wish it could be), borderline personality disorder (everything is extreme, the world needs splitting!!), and narcissistic personality disorder (you're either my inferiour or superiour, perfection is the only option otherwise I'll hate myself, not accepting mediocricity and demanding constant praise and admiration, needing to always be right).
Extreme negative self-talk does no-one any good and distorting and exagerating reality will ultimately close down positive opportunities as the worst is presumed. It's amazing how creative the human mind is, we very much create our won worlds! Further, high emotional arousal to normal every-day situations will create unnecessarily destructive fight or flight reactions to the otherwise banal.
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Also, I guess with television and internet what we see to be the best (millionaire mansions on MTV etc) is so unobtainable that it makes people very unhappy as they are constantly unfavourably comparing themselves. The whole one-up-from-the Jones' effect on steroids.
I think I agree with everything you said here! It is really funny to see how people go radical, but I can also understand them - as you say, it is some sort of defend-mechanism which helps them to survive without doing or thinking too much.
Also, I must agree about the comparing with millionaires on the internet part. It is even worse, we compare ourselves to our friends' profiles, which are always perfect (because who would ever post negative or ugly stuff about themselves?). I read somewhere that we are depressed because we are comparing our behind the scenes to others' highlight shots. I like this analogy.
Yes that's a good point about the surface impressions from social media profiles!