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DuckNDawg's avatar

While survival instinct might be the underlying reason that the human brain focuses on negative aspects, I think we really seek the joy of order out of chaos. Beethovens' symphonies. Monet's paintings. The Golden Gate Bridge. Fredrick Law Ohlmsted community design. Talisien and Falling Water by Frank Lloyd Wright. You name it: everyone has their own sets of beauty archetypes.

While there may be stylistic & genre preference differences, we can generally discern dissonance from harmony, organized from disorganized, functional from dysfunctional, proportional from disproporoportional, etc. As a consequence, I believe that noting the negative is an aspect of the brain's process of seeking order by recognizing a system that's "flawed" and endeavoring to figure out how to fix those flaws. Successfully implementing the fix(es) results in more order and a "win" against nature's entropy.

It IS uplifting to read "positive" stories and you DO provide so many of them (e.g.: changes to Pac-12 BB tournament; Soji learning how to ride her bike; legacy toy drives from "Shoe's" passing, etc.).

But at the heart of each of these positive stories is at least one negative that has been recognized, analyzed & overcome (correspondingly: a flawed tournament design that diminished Pac-12 BB teams' post-seasons; Soji's overcoming fear of falling (gravity) & failing (inertia), while learning to ride a bike; distilling ongoing life-affirming opportunities for sick kids' happiness from the tragic passing of a special sick kid, etc.). You give us plenty of positive stories and they are appreciated.

You are meeting your responsibility as a credible journalist when you report the "negative " stories, too. You do so properly when you report in your accurate, fair & balanced manner. This allows your readers & listeners to consider the issues and propose solutions. Some of your readers & listeners are in positions of power to actually consider & implement solutions that may fix the problems. Ordo Ab Chao

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Brian M's avatar

My wife and I attended the 2nd of the Oregon State - UCLA games in 2022 that went all afternoon long and into the night (11:30pm). We did not make it past the 8th inning. It was really hot sitting in the stands in the late afternoon and you could tell the field was no cooler. The players looked worn out and they had innings to go when we threw in the towel around 8:30pm. Most people were commenting it was too many games in too short a period of time and something had to be done. I am glad the powers-that-be listened.

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