Anything bad - it has an upside that makes it more tolerable, if you can't avoid it. Even if you were to die one minute from now, there are plenty of upsides. I say this with confidence because life inevitably involves pain. Each moment of future pain you prevent is a kind of upside. And whoever you are, however kind and considerate, you will undoubtedly cause some problems for others in the future. Not causing them is a kind of upside. Put these two categories together, and we've already pointed to many upsides.
I'm not suggesting that dying is a good idea, or something not to seek with every ounce of your being to avoid. You should avoid it. But there is no bad thing without some upside, at least not in recorded human experience. Even the greatest tragedies you've ever heard have the upside that they've been communicated and at least partly understood, so now they can be a little more easily avoided. And if no one hears of a hypothetical tragedy, it's usually easy to find upsides. A tornado that kills a solitary person who is never found still carries out the energy-flow purpose of a vortex, and the person's atoms can be used by other life. Perhaps any pain that person feels in the last moments has no upside. Then again, perhaps even pain that is never remembered or communicated serves some purpose. And at least it was brief and did not cause a lasting psychological wound.
I could simply have said "Every cloud has a silver lining, and every silver lining has a cloud," but reiteration is not always powerful. When you've heard the words "Just do it" but still struggle to get into them, well it could be that they just won't help, but it could also be that today, in this moment, you need illustration. Some source of the Nile needs to bring you fresh verisimilitude, elaboration, a gentle twist of the neck. Maybe today it's art that you need. One function of art is to illustrate what we already supposedly know.
You know war is bad. Yes? Are you going to tell me Saving Private Ryan doesn't change how you feel and what you know?
