Thank you.
I was just being honest about my feelings. I can't force myself to be optimistic or positive if in fact I'm feeling pessimistic and negative.
As much as I'd like to believe I'm the captain of my ship, my life, I know very well that I'm but a small part of a bigger social, interconnected whole. That is to say I am part of society, I live my life by societal rules, I adhere to social conventions, I follow the laws of the land.
At least to me, it looks like the society has been completely taken over, in a short space of time and people are willing to accept things they wouldn't before, in the name of a virus. For example, I know if I was to say, use an airplane and not wear a mask, I will be targeted for special treatment. I know there are certain freedoms I used to have not even more than a year ago that I don't have now.
I sense a heaviness in the air, as if people are living pretending everything is normal, trying to be positive but nothing is normal, really. It's like being a kid in a family where at the dinner table everything appears normal but underneath the facade there are things that are far from normal. Most, if not all the fundamentals of society are being broken. Even social life has changed, the economy has been broken beyond repair and as soon as the government stops giving free money and the central banks realise they can't fix it by simply pumping "made up" money into the markets, then things will really get interesting.
I'm not sure how I can be positive in such a situation. I just feel kind of sad, a bit like I'm in a helpless situation, in the sense that I'm part of the whole and therefore my fate is pinned to the fate of the whole ultimately. Maybe it's a sense of melancholy.
Your pessimistic and negative feelings are just your subjective interpretation of global events. There were many people during the great depression who were active and creative enough that their lives were positive. This is also true now. What is happening globally does not mean it is happening individually. We can escape the madness by finding the ever-pressent positive options that are available and keep working towards the joy of living and doing for others. Helping others during this time is a great way to avoid being food for the negative-feelings parasites. Living a joyful life is still possible, you just have to be more careful about believing your negative feelings are the honest assessment of your ever-changing now.