Positivity has gotten to a nearly pathological level in mainstream culture. As a therapist, one of the hardest things I do is to try and convince very nice people that it is okay to be angry, disappointed, afraid, and resentful and my patients don’t need to immediately make themselves feel “compassion” for people that have hurt them. They are without fail quite skeptical, but I press ahead because I am confident that is true and part of that confidence has come from learning to work with fear, pain, and mortality on this boat. The boat is a near constant exercise in pain. Learning to sail meant learning to throw out…