Sometimes I wonder why we do this to ourselves.
You spend years working on a project before it gets published. All the while only dealing with negativity towards your work. The job of all of your peers is to criticize and tear you down (presumably to make the paper better). Then, after years of negativity, you get a brief moment of positivity when the paper gets published and start all over again.
Of course criticism is natural and necessary for academic work. But often it doesn't feel like a 'collaborative noble pursuit of the truth'. Mostly it feels like there are a limited number of academic jobs and everyone just tries to bring you down to reduce competition for themselves.
How do you non-tenured people deal with negativity in academia?