Negative Positivity: Light Bright Enough to See, but also Enough to Blind

The coming of the plague at the turn of the 2020s had gripped the world over, and where its touch of death escaped, it struck terror and fear into the hearts of billions. And mankind, so globalised and interconnected entering the millennium, now turned away in self-isolation, strenuously held together by the fragile net of the world wide web. As life turned increasingly digital, news of infection and mortality rates soared, but so too did the chorus of messages of hope and strength. Positive messages became a light in the darkness that blanketed the earth. But is there such a thing as being too positive?

In the spirit of strength and weathering through, it can become all too easy to get wrapped up in the tide of mottos, posts, retweets, and statuses reading along the lines of “If they can, you can”, “We’re all in this together”, “Buck up, you can do it”, and “Don’t feel sad, there’s so many others worse off”. Though pure in its intent, an inadvertent effect trumpeting these messages have is that one can easily descend into generalisation; that everyone’s troubles are the same, regardless of circumstance, or worse still, to dismiss someone’s plight off-hand and simply tell them to “Work harder” and “Don’t be so negative”. This “positivity” is so extreme it becomes harmful. Modern internet parlance calls this “toxic positivity”, I call it being negatively positive; a twisted perversion of positivity that ironically ends up being negative, despite using “positive” slogans, words, catchphrases, and all its trappings.

What then, might a recourse be? “Negative” positivity would imply that there is a “positive negativity”. Is there? Anger, hate, sadness; these are negative emotions, and like any other, can be constructively channelled. To be angry and sad over lost relatives, lost jobs, lost opportunities, lost time, or any of the infinitely varying woes that beset us, is natural, and human. To pretend they don’t exist and to funnel them elsewhere within your psyche is not only foolish, but harmful. Channel them; let grief wash over you. Feel it, completely. Accept it. It is an emotion every bit as valid as your happiness and hope. And with this acceptance, use it. Let your anger and frustrations with your current circumstances help drive you to change them, and over things which you have no control, let the acceptance of that sadness remind you of happier days, and how wonderful life is that you were able to experience them, for though after its midday peak every step the sun takes is a decline, the promise of tomorrow is ever present, for the warm and shining sun shall surely rise again.

Many things in life often come in pairs and are strengthened by it. Abu Bakr wept as others celebrated when the Prophet announced his mission was complete, profoundly replying to Umar that it meant he was soon to leave. In feeling grief, there is hope in the promise of better days, and in feeling joy, the caution of trials to come. In this way we control our emotions, rather than be enslaved to their extremes. Now, more than ever, constantly surrounded by news of death, living a life mindful of its end, life becomes all the more precious, worth celebrating, worth fighting and struggling for, assured that through it all; the joy and despair, that −

“the end will be better than the beginning” (93:4).

Written by:

Shah Nizam Bin Mazlan