Do I Attach a Negative Meaning to Trivial Events?

It has been said that I attach a negative meaning to trivial events. I don't think that's an accurate observation. I notice peculiarities in people's behaviors and statements. Sometimes I attach a negative meaning to a trivial event, or a positive meaning -- and in the example below, hardly any meaning at all.

The following is an account of a Christmas party held in my apartment building on December 9, 2004.  I noted peculiarities and patterns in one of the guest's statements.  I suspect the guest's statements reveal something about his personality.  But I have no idea what precisely it is that he revealed.  I do note however that I am reminded of a section of Leonard Shengold's book Soul Murder: The Effects of Childhood Deprivation and Abuse.  Shengold argues that "anal defensiveness" involves a panoply of defenses evolved during the anal phase of psychic development that culminates with the individual's power to reduce anything meaningful to "shit"--to the nominal, the degraded, the undifferentiated.  In the following discussion the party guest seems to reduce things to the nominal, the degraded and the undifferentiated.

The party was held in the building's social room. I sat in the same chair all evening, from about 6:00 till after 8:00. I was seated with a group of young people. The conversation seemed to be dominated by one fellow, an Indian from Bombay. He does "infrastructure finance" -- roads, tunnels, bridges, that type of thing.

He was fascinating. His own "intrapsychic structure" was expressed repeatedly in everything he said. The same psychological pattern repeated itself, time after time. Someone asked: "As for Metro, what's the better way to raise money -- by fare increases or by taxation?" Finance Guy said: "Oh, taxation, of course. That's the only way to raise significant revenues. Fares are nothing. They amount to nothing. They're crap. Fares don't even pay for the electricity that Metro uses."

Later in the conversation he was talking about environmentalism, and concerns about global warming. "The only way to do anything about global warming is to increase reliance on nuclear energy." Someone said: "What about alternative energy sources?" Finance Guy said: "No, it has to be nuclear. Alternative energies are nothing. Take wind power, for example. It's nothing. It's crap. It doesn't amount to anything in the total picture of energy supplies."

Someone asked: "But what about the waste material. Nuclear waste? Doesn't nuclear power generate a lot of nuclear waste?" Finance Guy said: "Nuclear energy produces very little waste. It's nothing. It's crap. It doesn't amount to anything."

Then the interlocutor said: "But even so, the waste that is produced is so toxic. Even a small amount of nuclear waste can contaminate a wide area. No?"

Finance Guy said: "No. That problem is overblown. The problems posed by nuclear waste are nothing. They're crap."

Then later on in the conversation, something amazing happened. Finance Guy was talking about his native country, India. He was talking about the use of the English language in India, and he pointed out that only about 5% of the Indian population speaks fluent English. "Just five percent. But keep in mind, India has a population of over one billion people. So that amounts to about 50 million people who speak English. Fifty million! Think about it. Just five percent of Indians speak fluent English, but in real terms it amounts to 50 million people. Why, that's huge!" You see the split in Finance Guy's thinking? At times he discounted the significance of an object in real terms, emphasizing instead the quantitative smallness of the object as a percentage of the whole. But with respect to one issue (the use of English in his native India -- the Motherland), he discounted the significance of percentage and emphasized the importance of the object in real terms.

As Freud would say, "This is something that I would like to know more about."