Adonis Diaries

Is there such thing as an optimist?

Usually, people care less for dialogue regardless of how important dialogue is stressed in every community meeting.  People get far more excited disputing and arguing. This tendency is not bad occasionally, just to breaking this vicious uniform cycle of “politically correct expressions” that are tying people in knots of boredom and uneasiness for free expression of opinions.

For every word, language created an opposite meaning:  Not to satisfying any quest for accuracy in expression or to increasing knowledge, but to catering for the need of people to playing devil’s advocates when they feel totally bored with uniform culture.

There is no such thing as black; there are shades of white and light.  There are no such a thing as an optimist; there are variations of pessimists. Why?

A reasonable pessimist meets a friend and says: “Conditions cannot be worse as today.”  His friend replies: “Sure, conditions can be far worse.”  Who do you think is the less pessimist?  Are we playing rational games or one of them has additional information and has been exposed to worse conditions?

For example, the physician is comforting a sick person: “You know, health is such a precarious state; you can never foresee that well-being is going to last into tomorrow.  What of all the diseases in waiting?  Anyway, there is no escaping old age and its health indignities”.

The less pessimist might be relying on progress in medicine, the increase in “life expectancy” statistics, and better life conditions for the next generation… Is the less pessimist expecting forseeable progress to catch up with him, while still alive and kicking or is he delusional?

Buddha said: “Life is suffering” and a few Books say: “The more the level of conscience, the higher the pain.”  Certainly, no matter what we do to increasing our security and avoiding dangerous situations and events, we are always short on prevention and due care.

Maybe the more knowledgeable and informed we are, the higher is our level of pessimism.  Is level of pessimism mainly due to temperament, (among normal people), that varies with time and situations?  Can roles be reversed at short notice?  The high level pessimist knows that more work is needed and awaits him.

Both kinds of pessimists (high and low levels for the moment) are intelligent and willing to dealing with current difficulties; they learn at their own pace to leaving future events to “hazard”.  They were just arguing.

It is wrong to think that a pessimist is less active and less alive than the one living from hand to mouth.  Once you give a meaning to your life, then targeted actions will break barriers of sophistry.  It is better to face reality and deal with it rather than lining up the worst possibilities in the future from an ivory tower.