more, regarding "how common?"

The brain gives itself a pat on the back for quickly detecting a
pattern among the faces. "It's good to make order out of chaos.
The brain rewards itself for finding something meaningful".
-- http://www.bu.edu/phpbin/news-cms/news/?dept=1127&id=41272

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koinophilia (the theories here
seem sort of heavily Darwinian and a little sketchy at that, but
interesting nonetheless). I also like the word, which is reminiscent
of the term 'koinomics' that my dad coined to talk about "the stuff
I study".

Anyway, this business about "how common" or "how average"
is interesting with respect to things like the job search. Skills
at Python and JavaScript are definitely better for most jobs than
skills at Lisp! Nevertheless, for the Lisp jobs that are available,
pay may be higher than average

(http://lispnews.blogspot.com/2008/08/lisp-job-market.html).

physiological basis of emotions (episode 1)

... studies showing the
simultaneous involvement of noradrenergic, opioid
peptidergic and GABAergic systems in the
modulation of memory storage of aversive events
eliciting escape and avoidance...

... cognitive behaviors
(such as certain forms of learning and memory) are
characterized by a highly non-specific set of actions
(some mental) and are subjected to rich and
functionally important neuromodulations...

In experimental settings, ... reflexes can ...
be considered emotion-independent...

...the sight of a tempting water area can amplify
'primary (hypovolemic) thirst'...

... in the same manner as Hebb first proposed that brain
processes were the result of the activation of certain
neural assemblies, the emotional state can be best
seen as patterns of neuromodulation of these
assemblies...

-- http://www.snl.salk.edu/~fellous/pubs/emo.pdf

another view on crisis

Crisis has come to mean that moment
when doctors, diplomats, bankers, and
assorted social engineers take over and
liberties are suspended. Like patients,
nations go on the critical list. 'Crisis',
the Greek term that has designated
"choice" or "turning point" in all modern
languages, now means "driver, step
on the gas." Crisis now evokes an ominous
but tractable threat against which money,
manpower, and management can be
rallied. Intensive care for the dying,
bureaucratic tutelage for the victim of
discrimination, fission for the energy glutton,
are typical responses. Crisis, understood
this way, is always good for executives
and commissars, especially those scavengers
who live on the side effects of yesterday's
growth: educators who live on society's
alienation, doctors who prosper on the
work and leisure that have destroyed health,
politicians who thrive on the distribution of
welfare which, in the first instance, was
financed by those assisted. Crisis understood
as a call for acceleration not only puts more
power under the control of the driver, while
squeezing the passengers more tightly into
their safety belts; it also justifies the
depredation of space, time, and resources
for the sake of motorized wheels, and it
does so to the detriment of people who want
to use their feet.

-- Ivan Illich, "Useful Unemployment and its
Professional Enemies", in "Toward a History
of Needs".

seen it all

"I've seen it all, I've seen the dark
I've seen the brightness in one little spark.
I've seen what I chose and I've seen what I need,
And that is enough, to want more would be greed.
I've seen what I was and I know what I'll be
I've seen it all - there is no more to see!"

-- Bjork, from "Dancer in the Dark"

So, here's what gets me: negativity. And this seems like a big
conundrum -- what do I get when I say I'm "against negativity"?

It's not as simple as two minus signs make a plus sign --
a better model in this case might be something like a "no
smoking sign".

Then there's the fact that most typically to say "yes" to one thing,
you must also say "no" to many other things. So just what is it
about a "positive attitude" that makes it so positive?

My sense is that this gets into matters of the stateful-mind --
the fact that we are not so much "logical" creatures as "physical"
ones. I think that when we affirm things (whatever they may
be), we are also affirming ourselves.

I believe this is a well-worn philosophical track -- but I find it
to be no less of a conundrum, for what I think are cultural
reasons. We seem to have been brought up in a culture that
is adamant about "no". A "cultural critique" would, at this
point, just be a ridiculous semantic game, so I'm *not* going
to go there...

Instead, I will just suggest an empirical exercise: to look
at all of the uses of the word "not" that one comes across.
Is the process of elimination that this word suggests -- working?
Or is it -- not working? And... where do we go from here?