Sounds like an interesting book...

The whole "positive thinking" idea has just gone overboard. From where I am sitting, there's nothing wrong with approaching problem solving with a general "We can get this done!" positive confidence approach... but that's very different from the current state of affairs where people feel pressured to censor any negative (realistic?) thoughts out of existence. Newsflash: Just because you pretend something negative doesn't exist doesn't mean it'll magically go away.

Although I'm by no means a member of the conspiracy theorist tinfoil faraday cage hat brigade, it does sometimes feel like society keeps narrowing the parameters for "normal human experience," including negative feelings... perhaps with an eye towards Big Pharma medicalizing and drugging anyone who's not a "happy little sheep" into oblivion. If we dial back the clock 100 years, someone's "melancholic temperament" was seen as a perfectly normal part of the spectrum of human emotions and they were largely left in peace to be a tragic poet or a deeply troubled artist. Now? Not so much. Would the likes of Strindberg and Nietzsche even be allowed to roam free in today's society?