Yesterday an attack of gloominess overcame me. I recited salawat 100x, normally this would give me relief, but for once it didn't work. Finally in the afternoon I decided to practice Tai Chi, I had to force myself to do it, and the gloominess left. I have had a history of depression in my teenage years, and sometimes still become gloomy. Optimism is such a strange state of mind, in my opinion. I look at naturally optimistic people and think they are like Aliens. Most of the time, I am not gloomy, but not exactly cheerful, but neutral about 95% of the time. Anyway, from what I have read of the Sahabah, they seem to have a wide range of personalities... just compare Umar (ra) with Abu Hurayrah (ra) etc... There is room for Muslims of very different personalities. I wonder if there is room in the ummah for a gloomy Muslim. (Was there a Sahabah who was naturally gloomy? I really don't know. There are thousands of Sahabah with great variety of characters, maybe there is one I haven't heard of?) ... Anyway, the attacks of gloominess is annoying because I cannot get anything done. There seem to be different kinds. One sort of attack is like an endless chain of negative words in my head endlessly and continuously putting me down. I'm not schizophrenic because I know it's my own thoughts, it's not external. But it's like my brother's TV that I don't know how to turn off because he has six different remotes for all the devices attached to the TV. I press this and that button on this or that remote and the TV just keeps going! Another sort is like heaviness and an evil feeling in my chest, with no words or cause, like yesterday. Some people like to shout "Jinn!" or "Sihr!", but I don't think this is either. It could be bad past experience. It could just be bad digestion. It could be early warning of a physical illness that will hit next week. I remember a time feeling out of sorts for 2 weeks before being hit by adult chickenpox. wAllahu a'lam. If it is Jinn, why would Tai Chi give me relief? I don't even know what I am asking... maybe my brain and heart could use a good antivirus, registry clean, defrag and debugging, because I cannot reformat and reinstall... Is optimism a Sunnah? That will be a very hard thing for me to accomplish. Neutral is the best I can do at the moment, to function. Is that all right? (I am "neutral" at the moment, alhamduliLlah.)