The science of Positivity by Loretta Graziano Breuning , Ph.D.

The science of Positivity is a book (2017 edition ;224 pages; Adams Media)  which tells us about how negative thought patterns are formed  and how we can rewire ourselves  and  replace our negative thought habits with positive ones. 

             Dr. Breuning is a Neuro Chemical expert   and explains  through examples , stories , analogies  how brain chemicals  ( neurotransmitters) Dopamine, Serotonin , Oxytocin , Endorphin  and Cortisol  play a major role in our thought habits. Our neural pathways were paved by our early neuro chemical ups and downs. Our negativity and cynicism  are habits formed in an early stage of our life to  cope up with  chance events related to survival threats, breaches of trust , being dominated  socially by bullies or, being left behind in a competition or race. Negativity is good at  stimulating happy chemicals. Because it feels good , we do’nt want to come out of negativity. The electricity in our brain flows  into these  old pathways or circuits  whenever  stressful situation due to survival threats  comes up. As a result , we remain negative or cynic. If we want to have positivity in life , we have to build new  neural pathways or circuits. The book tries to answer how it can be done .

  Why should we have positivity?  As  the author explains:” Cynicism  helps relieve a sense of threat  but it comes at a price .it makes you powerless  because you focus on things you cannot control  instead of things you can control.”

   In Chapter 6 of the book  (title: PARE Habit), the author gives a very practical way  to build a positive life , called PARE which means Personal Agency and Realistic Expectations. She says that three times a day , stop and think of something good. Spend one minute each time scanning  for the positive aspects of situation  that are currently on your mind. Do this for six weeks and your brain  will be trained to look for the  good of the world.  She also says that we should maintain a positivity  minutes(journal)  to keep daily the minutes  of this exercise.     Just keep finding and recording three good things a day for six weeks  , and your new expectations will affect your neuro chemistry  and build your new  neural pathways. This metamorphosis or alchemy  from negative  wiring to positive wiring in six weeks sounds too good to be true but Dr. Breuning  insists that  it is true. And I trust her academic and intellectual integrity.

          There are  many interesting  examples of  positivity at work . For example , if your bank makes an error, you get upset but you do’nt notice the bank’s billions of correct transactions .She seems to be advocating a more tolerant view of people at work , rather than a Zero Defect mindset. But she is on weak wicket when  she asks us to do something for climate crisis  with a positive feeling and have no negative feelings .When you are choking  with polluted air , it is difficult to  have only  positive feelings .

            But still,  it is a highly convincing book  about getting from cynicism to positivity. Dr. Breuning’s style is  clear , direct, accessible  and  captivating , and  very enjoyable . There is some inner logic , drive and force  in this book  which makes it different from other books on positivity that I have read. I   strongly recommend you to read this wonderful short book. It has the potential to change your life.

Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre

I have read this  classic novel   ( Nausea : 253 pages: Penguin Modern Classics)by Jean-Paul Sartre   three times. Each reading gave me more meaning and more joy. Written in 1938 , it  has had a powerful impact on literature as well as philosophy. It belongs to existential genre of literature.

        It is the story of Antoine Roquentin , a French writer  completing his historical research  on the Marquis de Rollebon. The book is in the form of a diary. Antoine  is a  critical  thinker and  a lonely person , who struggles to come to terms with his life .In his solitude , he   tries to discover the meaning of life but  when he does not succeed ,  he becomes  overwhelmed with an  intolerable awareness of his  purposeless existence , which he calls nausea. He has no dearth of money and stays in a hotel  in Marseille in France to do his research .

               One character  called Autodidact   ( also called Ogier P-), who was a bailiif’s clerk and whose acquaintance  Roquentin had made  at the Bouville library , is frequently mentioned in the book .Autodidact is The Self Taught Man (STM) and  frequently discusses  life and its meaning with Roquentin. Autodidact does not agree that there is no meaning in life .Rather he confronts his despair  by turning into a Humanist. Before that , he   reads  all the books in the library , one by one  but the way he reads ( books   selected  with authors’  names   alphabetically, irrespective of the subject) . Such a knowledge does not give  him  any satisfaction  . As a humanist , he wants to go to help  and  serve other human beings. Autodidact is the symbol of everything  that has gone wrong with our education and our society. He keeps working towards a goal . Once one goal is reached, he needs to create a new one  for himself. The again and again .This approach looks at life as a series of goals .To Antoine , it feels  as  though  such an unexamined  life  is all quite pointless. Most of us approach life  in a way similar to  Autodidact’s  approach. It is a life  which is not examined because of endless pursuit of trivial knowledge and   material goals. This is the   question which   this book  Nausea    forces us to confront.

           In its final pages,  Nausea is not a book without solution .Sartre says that  our happiness is in our hands only. Only we can   justify ,create and give meaning to our lives. But such a meaning  cannot come out of writing a history book.(“history talks about  what has existed –an existent can never justify  the existence of another existent” ).It has to be some thing   which was above existence , which could make people  ashamed of their existence. It could help him  in accepting himself.

              Sartre speaks right to our soul. His style is intimate and beautiful. This is the kind of book  we could  and should read again and again, discovering some new meaning or detail every time . It is serious work of literature and some people may   find it a heavy read . So , if you  like serious literature and   wish to be  different from Ogier P-, I strongly recommend this book for you.