Sucker-Punch and Milk Cows

I guess I’ll start with some honesty; these chapters came at me from a very unexpected angle. While I was reading about various means of interpreting the world, I was led to examine how I personally respond and react to life. Growing up, my family was not sympathetic in the conventional sense of the word: we were very much a “suck it up and move on” kind of family. (This was due, in part, to my dad growing up milking cows at 4 a.m. No matter how you may be feeling at 4 in the morning, you simply must get up and milk those cows. Period. Otherwise they’ll explode. Literally.) This upbringing led me to be what I am today: a stubborn optimist. I believe that no matter how dire the situation, something good can always come of it. The trick is having a determined positive attitude. This isn’t to say that being stubbornly positive prohibits you from ever feeling sad; the stubborn optimist takes time to feel sorrow, disappointment, etc. but then immediately looks for the good (or the lesson), trusting that it will be there. All of that said, I had mixed feelings about Dorothy Allison’s “This Is Our World”. It’s a marvelous essay, but I didn’t agree with the negative view at the end. Yes, the world is full of absolutely terrible things, horrific tragedies and untold sorrows; however, there is an equal amount of good, of the miraculous, and the inspiring; there has to be, it’s the law of opposition. So, while I was feeling all “up in arms” about my decidedly positive outlook on life, my views were subsequently challenged by the images in chapter seven, specifically the picture of Omayra Sanchez. I can of course apply gospel principles and talk about the eternal perspective, which are all good and true, but my initial reaction: this picture frightened me. Perhaps the reminder of the injustice that does take place in the world, and my own inability to save it, to save a friend, to save the already deceased young girl in the photo, was disheartening. As stubbornly optimistic as I wish to be, there is a reality in the other side of the law of opposition. And while my rather iron-willed optimism will continue, these chapters remind me that reality can sometimes sucker-punch my surety.