Quote of the Week...from Stephen Hawking

People won't have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.
                                                                                               ---Stephen Hawking.

Stephen Hawking, the British astrophysicist most known for surviving...even thriving through his horrific decades-long physically debilitating ALS affliction while popularizing science and producing advances in studies on black holes, passed away last week.  He is noted for saying many things...his final quote stirred a lot of interest, as he urged humanity to leave Earth and settle on other worlds in the face of the looming danger caused by increasingly powerful (and survival-savvy) artificial intelligence.  I've read tributes about him from others relating to his chosen scientific field, but I selected the above quote because, one, it is very different from his others and, two, I happen to disagree with it...

It has been my experience in life that it is precisely those who regularly display anger, complaints, and are verbally aggressive toward others who end up being the more popular ones while those who are restrained, gracious, and show a more dispassionate, thoughtful manner of looking at things and others tend to be more ignored and isolated.  Yes, I know this runs counter to just about every self-help philosophy out there, but I can't ignore the blunt reality of my actual memories. Just look at the dude currently occupying the White House: have you ever seen anyone so full of venom and who seems to be in a constant state of agitation, publicly calling out others by name to tactlessly criticize in the most scathing personal terms? Yet folks see him for this as an interesting person and are attracted to him...even his enemies who decry his behavior have plenty of time for him, even if it is in a negative sense.  Which brings me to a sobering conclusion: most people are passion addicts...

Being civil and positive in your speech may keep you out of trouble for the most part, but it won't win you many devoted friends, either.  Somewhere along the line the notion has arisen and permeated our society that "bad" speech and behavior is associated with being a passionate person while good manners and goodwill and grace toward others and one's own situation gets the rap for being traits of an uninteresting, "low-energy" personality.  The elevation of rational reasoning and civil discourse over appealing to emotions and the mob mentality never seemed to be a virtue that attracted others: people want to see passion in others, and will judge a more reserved and considerate person as lacking that passion...and consequently avoid him or her.  I believe that we should be assertive as to standing up for our own due self-interests...especially when they are being denied.  But that's not the same as those who are constantly lording themselves and forcefully pushing their own agendas over others...behavior that in our society is consistently (and sadly) rewarding. Sorry, folks...and the late Stephen Hawking...that's just the way I see it...

In Max Ehrmann's prose poem Desiderata there is the line "Avoid loud and aggressive people, they are vexatious to the spirit".   Well, the opposite effect seems true in today's world as people seem to desperately want their own spirits vexed as they flock to just these sorts...