This is another concept I've heard expressed in various forms, and I wanted to ramble about my current understanding of it. I'm the first to admit it sounds like a nauseatingly idealistic cope to claim all negativity is just a bunch of clouds blocking you from seeing the life-giving sun that is always present. Still, the mood struck me and I wanted to sit down and type down my thoughts.
You've probably heard the sentiment that posits love as the ultimate truth. The claim is basically that if you clear all the stains and smudges in your lenses, you'll find yourself peering into something blissfully beautiful rather than an eldritchian void in which nameless horrors reign. The amount of negativity correlates positively with the level of our ignorance.
When I consider a few experiences humans can have, I see certain merit to the claim. Near-death experiences in which the person is aware but the brain is unable to maintain the sense of I, are often described as peaceful. I assume similar thing happens in psychedelic-induced ego death or at the very end on the path towards enlightenment. Once the ego gives up the struggle, you are free and judging by these experiences, it is blissful.
For the record, here I don't talk about the ego as anything to do with self-esteem or comparison, but a mental structure that is geared towards self-preservation. Self-esteem and comparison can be a facet of it if other people's approval is experienced to be intimately tied to one's own survival, but I don't want to imply the ego is anything childish a mature person should simply grow out of. There are more refined egos that cause very little disruption among others and less refined egos that cause a lot disruption among others, but they are both egos. A presence of an ego is presence of striving towards self-preservation, and this is inherently stressful to the person. If, subconsciously or consciously, someone is taking actions that are founded by self-preservation, the implication is that there is a reason for it - a threat or potential for it. This is why it is stressful, and I assume removal of this mental structure would liberate the person from the stress that comes from perceived threats and the suppression of oneself or actions one is compelled to take in order to control these threats.
This would suggest that miserable existence is not the truth, but a smudge on the lens that keeps us from seeing the truth. Well-being is not some lie we have to trick ourselves into believing by repeating positive affirmations, but something we naturally end up to if only we find the courage to dig deep enough.
I don't know if it's true. I don't know what's true, but the sentiment of love being the ultimate truth sounds like a good thing for my mental health, so I'll try adopting it. I'd rather discredit the depressing sense of meaninglessness that's all too familiar to me than an idea of something beautiful and life-affirming being the bedrock of our existence.