In Defense of the Un-Cheerful

    

 I have met a certain number of people who regard any expression of negativity as verboten, as a kind of moral leprosy. One critical remark, one honest doubt, and the offender is scorned, even ridiculed-if not patronizingly "helped". They speak of it with the gravity of men defending a sacred principle. To admit difficulty, to name a fault, to utter a plain complaint—these things, in their view, are not merely unpleasant; they are crimes against right thinking itself.

The strange thing is this: the same people who demand absolute positivity can become remarkably bitter when their rule is questioned. Let a man speak of real hardship, or point out what is plainly wrong, or suggest that things might be better arranged, and at once he is accused of poisoning the well. The prohibition against negativity applies only to others; the enforcers themselves may scold and condemn with perfect freedom. It is a curious sort of tolerance that insists on uniformity while reserving the right to punish deviation.This is not wisdom. It is, more often, a refusal to look steadily at unpleasant facts, disguised as virtue. True strength does not consist in forbidding half the range of human feeling, or in treating every frown as evidence of disloyalty to some ideal. It consists in facing what is there—the sharp edges, the failures, the contradictions—and still choosing to go on. Hope has its place, but only where it is earned, not decreed.Let us then keep a balance. A measure of optimism to carry one forward, a measure of plain sight to keep one from falling into traps, and no patience whatever with those who appoint themselves guardians of correct sentiment. The mind is not improved by pretending discomfort does not exist; it is improved by naming it accurately and dealing with it as it is. Life is too serious a business to be reduced to a program of enforced smiles.