Drinking the Kool-Aid
Posted by mbamommy on August 11, 2011
Have you ever heard that phrase? For some reason I’ve been hearing it a lot recently. So, I decided to do a little Wikipedia research (have I mentioned I’m a big fan of Wikipedia?) about where it came from. I always thought it came from Tom Wolfe’s “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test“. Turns out I’m wrong:
“Drinking the Kool-Aid” is a metaphor, used in the United States and Canada, that means to become an unquestioning believer in some ideology, or to accept an argument or philosophy wholeheartedly or blindly without critical examination. The phrase can sometimes have a negative connotation, or can be used ironically. The basis of the term is a reference to the November 1978 Jonestown Massacre, where members of the Peoples Temple were said to have committed suicide by drinking a “Kool-Aid”-like drink laced with cyanide.“
Sweet. Glad I’m using it in my day-to-day vocabulary. And I always thought it was such a positive phrase.
But…since I am using it…and since I like the phrase, I decided to do a list of all the non-cyanide laced Kool-Aid I’ve been drinking recently.
- Working out at 5:30am in the morning with J. Man, is it tough, but boy is my day great afterwards
- Not drinking (see above)
- Meditating
- Being Present (see above)
- Living Primally
- Vibram 5 Fingers (see above)
- Yoga
- Social Media
- Summer in Colorado
- Writing
- Pottery
- Taking time for myself
- Taking time with friends
What about you? Drank any Kool-Aid lately? Let me know what you’re inspired by! Maybe if we get enough peeps talking about positive Kool-Aid drinking, it’ll debunk the negative connotation…thereby allow MBA Mommy to enjoy using the phrase without feeling guilty. 
Bilingual Aspie « MBA Mommy said
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Parenthood: Cult or No? « MBA Mommy said
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