Hacker News Reader

Comment by Nadya | Hacker News Reader

Good times only exist because bad times exist to weigh them against. Good times would merely be "times" without bad times.

Language is full of color - and I find it a disservice to desaturate those colors. The bright are made all the more brighter when contrasted with the dim.

By muting language you make it harder to distinguish between those colors. Polite language becomes aggressive and disliked because you know when it is forced and dishonest and when everyone is expected to be polite - you lose the ability to distinguish between the forced politeness and the honest politeness. You begin to treat all politeness as forced politeness.

If you've ever been in a "100% optimistic, go-positive attitude" environment for any length of time you learn to hate it and treat everyone there with contempt. Being able to express negativity is important.

View on HN

> Good times only exist because bad times exist to weigh them against. Good times would merely be "times" without bad times.

That sounds very poetic, but I honestly don't think that any of the horrible things that have happened to me have made me enjoy life more.

Really? Horrible things happened to you because of 4chan? It's honestly laughable.

The parent did not mention 4chan.

You may not see it that way, but the negative experiences of your life have probably taught you more, influenced the core of your personality, and made you grow more than the positive ones.

There are plenty of ways in which people get simply harmed with no "benefit", or even crushed. By definition we only ever talk with those who survive in some way, and I think it's best to leave it up to a person to decide how they feel about bad things in their life, and what it did or didn't do for them. If you suffered through horrible things and grew from it with no permanent damage, that's great (no sarcasm intended), but please don't assume that's how it goes for everybody.

Your happiness goes to the baseline anyway. Even if something made you unhappy, unless it has permanent effects it usually only lasts so long.

It depends on how negative they are. Deployed to Afghanistan, is the PTSD worth it? Abused or neglected as a child, is the stunted development worth it? I don't think so.

Honestly I don't think you can sugar-coat negative experiences.

I suppose I do sometimes think about how much better my current job is than my previous one, but I'm not sure I see a universal silver lining for every negative experience.

It may be true that I learned various things from the time mom was violently murdered, but I've never once woken up and thought about how glad I am that today isn't as horrible as the day her corpse was discovered in our basement. Nor can I easily believe that the resulting years of depression added anything worthwhile to my enjoyment of life.

It's kind of like how execs of partner companies could enjoy Steve Jobs saying well done when they hit a deadline only because he would scream, "You fucking dickless assholes!!!" at them when they were behind schedule.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com