Thinking bad thoughts has absolutely no purpose. It can be dangerous and reckless, actually. The human mind is an optimism machine, so you better use it that way. Using it in any other way sort of belies the whole purpose of the machine. There IS a silver lining -- insists this machine -- and it is up to you to find it in the freakin cloud. If you absolutely don't see it, you aren't really trying. Most are not trying. Why? They must not understand the purpose of their minds' existence. Your conscious mind has evolved as a tool of evolution. Evolution itself saw the inherent inadequacy of mere change through generational mutation. So a mutation finally brought forth a trait that can literally transform the "bad" into the "good". So far, it has been the ultimate survival mutation, and therefore has a definite purpose: to show us how to see the world in a light that will allow for even further evolution. The power to project optimism into the most dire situations is the truly useful power. Pessimistic thought is a useless and harmful by-product of the mutation. Rigor requires you to acknowledge the pessimistic viewpoint. Discipline requires that you never focus on it.
Instinct, which relies basically on our reptile brain, senses danger. We need not cognize this part of ourselves. To do so would be a form of backwards evolution, no? Yet it has already happened, hasn't it? Most earthlings have intellectualized their instinct's absolute distrust of the "other". Indeed, in the absence of a believably objective moral system, the instinct's values of unenlightened self-interest have become the predominate moral code in America -- what I Call, the "GET MINE FUCK THAT OTHER PERSON" philosophy. The negative thinking goes on from there. (Witness my own negative thinking in just describing it.)
When you think of the intellect as a mutation for longer survival, you start to see how negative thinking, however true it seems, only makes you less likely to benefit from that mutation. In other words, bad thoughts make it more likely that you'll die. In other words, every cloud has a silver lining. "What a cliche," you might say here. Cliches are often ignored because they are cliche. Is a cliche just a useless phrase? Or is it just that certain statements have become cliche because they carry within them higher wisdom, waiting to be mined by future generations? I guess it's all about whether you think negatively or positively.
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