Positive rotation -- or spinning a negative into winning ways

I was reading a column by Dear Prudence concerning “Bridezilla” and the transformation some women go through when their wedding day approaches. Prudie wrote of “situational narcissism” and a few other choice concepts that reminded me of my longstanding history with the advice couch. It made me wonder. Was Dear Prudence actually getting the topics for her columns from therapy sessions? What a perfect spin on years of complaining—become an advice columnist. Presumably, after years of crying one’s eyes out and blaming mom, the individual might walk away with some gems of wisdom that could help others. Perhaps, if you have an excellent therapist, you could become syndicated like Dear ol’ Prudie.

Let’s face it. America is mostly scared to death of the long-reviled mentally ill and otherwise “crazy” individuals. Even genuine eccentrics can cause many of us to get the heebie jeebies. So if you’re slightly insane or more profoundly demented, why not put that pent up creativity to work. It has long been held that artists view the world in a different fashion than most of us. It is also apparent that the strange, unbalanced, insane, mentally ill, perpetually weird, odd, and even the mysterious might fall into the same category of understanding something about the world that the mainstream simply does not get. I am not saying all artists are unhinged, although most are. Many of the mentally tender could have a passable shot at becoming respected artists. It is a matter of directing distorted energy into certain creative and productive avenues.

Junkies of all kinds and particularly those of the prescription pill variety have one choice if they are not able to shed their addictions. Exercise or die. If you take pills, smoke or cannot put down the bottle, you had better move around a lot, work-out, even train your physique, because large pharma, big tobacco, and Captain Morgan are probably the most debilitating long term addictions out there. Let’s put aside crack and heroin users for a moment. They are just the dead walking and on their feet for a short time only. So, I suggest if you are a junkie you become a personal trainer. You might add back into the mix on the front end half of the years you are robbing from yourself on the back end. It is time to stretch and pump or you won’t see your 60’s. And you might leave a better looking corpse this way.

If your particular problem is that you are unimaginative and humorless, you may well have a lengthy career ahead of you in civil service, possibly as a high ranking politician. Think of the perks. You never have to engage in actual employment, there are boundless mixers, state dinners and black tie affairs, and if your honorable colleague from across the aisle pisses you off, you need never listen to him or her again. Or you can attach so much pork to his amendment that it would choke an army of lobbyists. Rudy Guliani, during the second round of Republican debates, could not even whip out a decent one-liner about his pro-life agenda as the hall the candidates were in was struck repeatedly by lightening. Politicians nowadays are so far in the box, we should seal them up and ship them somewhere, preferably overseas. What if every time an alien entered our country without proper papers, we sent to the offending nation two of our career politicians? I bet that would end illegal immigration in a hurry.

So you are a fanatic, an extremist, a real pain in the ass. Don’t become a suicide bomber, or shoot up a high school or university. If you have that much energy and no cause to go with it, blogging seems the perfect pursuit. You can vent all your frustrations about politics, pets, commerce, Wall Street, and professional athletics. You don’t have to really know anything to be a blogger. You don’t even have to know how to spell. If your mind has been racing for days and you’ve come up with the perfect solution to the budget deficit, all you need is a computer. You are not required to make sense. It’s a blog, after all. And besides, no one is going to read it. But think of the satisfaction you will get from seeing your name in lights. It is like strolling down the red carpet. And this next “bloggie” goes to…

This has been an article I call Positive Rotation. If we as individuals and a society have learned anything in this day and age it is that spin is good. We accomplished our mission in Iraq a long time ago. It is not amnesty—it is guest worker legislation. It is not an act of war rather a preemptive nuclear strike. The spin has not been this good since revenue enhancements took the place of increased taxes and missiles became known as Peacekeepers. And we absolutely can accomplish this as individuals in our daily lives. George Orwell in his most famous novel 1984 called this brand of double talk “Newspeak,” but I am afraid he’s lost ground in the polls of late. Talking with forked tongue has become known as spin, but even that moniker is now antiquated. Let’s call it something different. Let’s put a spin on spin. I offer “positive rotation.”