QOL Fastblast!: The Power of Negativity and Self-Loathing

I could be wrong, but I don't believe a successful mindset for navigating life's storms is neither positive nor negative. It's about how we utilize these attitudes.

This was something I had actually intended to include in my last post but things got a little long so I had to eliminate some thoughts demonstrating the complexity of positivity vs. negativity. I think a standalone piece is a better way to get into it anyway.

Before I get into this post, I feel the need to also point out that this one may not be for everyone. I get that I’m a bit of a weirdo, but there are plenty of others like me out there so I’m moving ahead with this one. If nothing else, it might help people realize that negativity in of itself is not a bad thing. It’s all in how one chooses to use it.

When explaining my philosophies on negativity, I like to go back to 1998.

I was fresh off a red hot US tour as a one-man “band” dubbed The Specialists. I mean, I was a hit. I played for a grand total of 37 people across a dozen or so venues. I even got paid in an open case of Mountain Dew and vegetarian chili at a club in Missoula, Montana. So yeah, I was a pretty big deal.

Me, being a very serious experimental “art” punk musician during this time

I had planned a two-week stay when I reached LA to visit with family. I arrived Thanksgiving 1997 just as I learned that my show there was getting cancelled after they had actually listened to my demo tape. Over dinner, my brother mentioned a research job available at the television production company at which he was then the obnoxious IT guy. I wasn’t really interested until he told me how much it paid. In the grand scheme of things, it didn’t pay much for the time but it still dwarfed the income I was making working part-time back in Detroit. I didn’t get the job, but I still decided to cancel the rest of my tour (about FOUR shows in the Southwest’s most glamorous punk house basements) and stick around for any other similar opportunities.

That opportunity came a few months later just as I was running out of money. I was hired as a production assistant for a daily magazine-style television series geared towards fashion and lifestyle stuff. So something totally up my alley, lol. My job was to complete random tasks such as assembling file cabinets and pick up the bagels in the morning. I had no intention of sticking around long term. This was just something to do to make some cash while I pursued a career as a musician.

As time passed, my disdain for the work — or rather the people with whom I worked— grew. Though I had no interest in a television career, I decided that I could do their jobs better than they could. Not because I had the training, experience, or cultural understanding necessary , I just had a crappy attitude of superiority and entitlement. I soon learned it would take more than that to get anywhere in the television business.

I was crushed upon the realization that I had somehow thought that being a punk kid making music very few cared about somehow made me deserving of anything I wanted in life. I was acting like an asshole, plain and simple. It’s more complicated than that, but I want to keep things on track toward my point.

The bottom line is that I became quite abusive towards myself. This was a continuation of a cycle that had repeated most of my life: vacillating between thinking too highly of AND too little of myself. But this time was different. I wound up making a few changes in how I processed my current reality that would yield some amazing results. I went from lowly production assistant to an in-demand producer/writer within just couple years. I never returned to Detroit as I had planned and that was ok. I have no strong regrets about abandoning my music “career”. For 20 years, I almost exclusively worked on projects that I was interested in so it clearly wasn’t just about the money. Yet, I was only unemployed for one week over two decades in a very fickle business.

I actually continued playing in bands while living in LA, but I never thought of it as anything but a fun hobby.

So what happened? I don’t believe in tough love in its strictest form (ie being harshly critical to motivate a change in behavior) or think that had much of anything to do with my success in the industry. Rejection and insults have never gotten me to work harder. If anything, it’s done the opposite. What occurred in this situation is that I did not let the reality of the situation hold me back. Instead, it allowed me to live a pretty amazing life. Well, at least until I was diagnosed with cancer. And even then, it hasn’t been so bad.

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WARNING: this where things are about to get weird (and probably not healthy for some reading this but maybe also helpful for others?).

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The negative self-loathing was liberating. I began to assume that everyone thought that I was a self-entitled idiot. But I didn’t let that stop me. Assuming my bosses would reject whatever I said and would fire me soon allowed me to suggest ideas fast and loose that I would not have dared to share previously, no matter high highly I thought of myself at the time. But that dismissal didn’t really happen. Instead, my input was well received. And I simultaneously continued to learn the trade in a way that worked for me… I “did the work” so to speak.

As I rose the production ladder, reminding myself that everyone still thought I was an idiot— albeit one with occasional good ideas— kept me from getting too big for my britches. Negativity didn’t hold me back… it kept me accountable only to myself and not someone else. If I was essentially skilled in my job and got shit done, I was free to be me.

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Fun Fact: After becoming responsible for whole productions, I regularly delivered finished content ahead of schedule and under budget. I was regularly brought in to takeover shows that were going logistically and financally sideways to resteer the proverbial “ship”. #humblebrag

Another Fun Fact: I have only been fired twice in my life. One was by Vince McMahon of WWE and the other was Werner Herzog of German film and Baby Yoda fame.

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Look, I’m not saying that what I did is good for everyone. My negativity took me someplace I never anticipated, but that place was likely an integral part of who I already was. And it was someplace good. I’ve travelled the world, interviewed some really fascinating people, and gotten to play with some pretty high tech equipment… all while finding ways to sneak in small, subversive concepts— true to my punk rock roots— along the way. If I had focused entirely on what others thought of me, I would’ve been hindered from much of any of that.

In a recent post, I used the phrase “upbeat but realistic” to describe my general demeanor in lieu of “positive” or “negative” which I find too limiting. Throughout my television career, I knew I had skill because I had studied what I needed to know along the way while assuming I wouldn’t be given any real chances because of that knowledge. My feet were in two different worlds- not positive or negative. Not restricted or entitled. It was “upbeat but realistic” in that I knew I could feel good about trying my best while recognizing that nothing would be given to me because of it. I made the choices I did along the way for what I thought was best, not for the approval of others. Fortunately, it worked out well for me. But if it hadn’t. I honestly believe I would’ve been fine with that. I would’ve just moved on to the next chapter.

Me, being a very important television producer somewhere in the South Pacific where I was blowing stuff up in the name of The Discovery Channel.

Even after my cancer diagnosis sent me into an early retirement in my 40s, I’ve utilized this duality of “I hate myself” and “I love myself” to some fairly interesting places. As I’ve alluded to in several posts, I am involved heavily in the cancer patient advocacy world which has put me in situations that I don’t think anyone who knew that punk rock kid in Detroit would’ve expected.

Me, in my $130/month apartment in Detroit’s Midtown/Cass Corridor prepping for the aforementioned tour. Would you hire me for more than coffee runs?

I know that I don’t know it all, but I also know that I bring a unique perspective of lived experience (for both myself and the many cancer patients I have communicated with).

My current method of “doing the work” is writing “essays” like this and videos like this in hopes that it might spread some deeper awareness of what living with cancer is like as well as consistently researching both the physiological and psychological impacts of cancer. As you may have noticed, I believe a good chunk of it applies outside of that world, but cancer is the motivation— specifically how the medical world views and treats the cancer world specifically. I’m trying to do something positive while embracing and studying all its negative aspects.

Me, in the current day on some cancer-related sciencey zoom where I’m both changing the world and saying whatever moronic idea does to mind. And ultimately. it doesn’t matter to me which is more true.

I’ve seen some productive impact from what I’ve done so far. But I also know that I could be more effective in sharing my perspective. That’s why I recently applied to graduate school (Social Psychology) in hopes that it could make me feel like I’m not talking out of my ass so much as well put me directly into the core of the scientific world to share some of my mildly subversive ideas… or at least ideas that challenge the status quo to expand their vision to something more three-dimensional.

My application is in with some recommendations that even I’m surprised by and I’m waiting to find out if I’ve been accepted or not. Rejection won’t stop me from doing what I think is right in the long run. Hell, I don’t even know if my fatigue issues will allow me to fully dive in. If I’m rejected or can’t hang, I’ll just move on to whatever chapter is next. Others, like

Liz Salmi

and

Adam Marc (he/him)

, certainly have been successful in doing things differently. All that matters is that I’m always trying to do what I think is best.

But I will say that making everyone address me by “Dr. Rudy” will be both pretty funny and pretty badass.