The Deep Humanity of Negative Feelings

May 6, 2023 - 2 minute read

Fuck people who pretend that there’s always something to do, that it’s a matter of motivation, looking at the bright side or whatever. This is toxic positivism, people who believe this crap either were lucky enough to never have experienced anything truly bad in their life (good for you, but don’t flatter yourself, it’s just chance), or they prefer to take shelter in denial when they do. In any case, they’re inflicting violence on people (possibly including themselves) by denying others’ pain (and maybe their own). This is obviously disrespectful and hurtful.

When things don’t go our way, we often start by fighting: searching for solutions, trying again, failing again, feeling tired, feeling that it should be different, feeling that it’s unfair, feeling that it’s against you personally, feeling victim, feeling weak, being upset and then feeling angry, feeling powerless, feeling that there must be a reason, feeling like you’re not normal, feeling guilty, maybe even self-hatred, wanting it to stop, being in absolute despair, regretting everything, being disappointed, being deeply depressed, feeling sad, very sad, an ocean of sadness… And finally letting it all go for a while. before starting the machine all over again, but this is optional.

and there’s really not much that can be done about it, you just have to accept this stuff as part of your experience as a human being right now. Modern trends in knowledge and efficiency would have us believe that everything can be cured, solved, optimized. It’s delusional: some things are going to be hard to cope with, and while there certainly are ways which are healthier than others to deal with these, pain is not always avoidable. In fact, knowing pain is a big part of what connects us together as human beings, and even as any kind of alive being.

It’s perhaps because we know what pain is that we sometimes try to make the world a better place by helping each other.

Blurry lights and rain on a window
201135 by Gabriele Diwald (CC-BY-4.0)

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