After reading yet another load of "only happy people can be successful" bullshit, I decided to start producing a list of people who are almost terminally or spiritually unhappy, miserable, depressed, cynical or whatever. Plenty of these people would be given drugs today to fix some 'problem'. I'm not particularly interested in whether they have a problem or not - the important thing is that they invalidate this positive thinking dictum that you have to be happy and optimistic in order to do anything useful.
I was inspired to do this in part by reading The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James when I did Psychology of Religion as an undergraduate. The chapter The Sick Soul contains many of these.
The unproductiveness of unhappy, cynical or
- Martin Luther - father of Protestantism
- "I am utterly weary of life. I pray the Lord will come forthwith and carry me hence."
- Mark Twain
(tbc)