Pessimism and optimism...

[fajrdrako]

Don't ever become a pessimist ... A pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun - and neither can stop the march of events. - Robert A. Heinlein, 1907 - 1988

Comments

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I think most of us pessimists start off as optimists, but there's a limit to the amount of times you can be kicked down and come back smiling, unless you're also a masochist.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's possible to be depressed and to be an optimist, so if events have made a person depressed, that would follow. Depressed people (including myself, when I was depressed) always see the reasons for their depression, and it's a kind of opaque self-justification. It isn't that it's not a valid reaction, but it's not an objective one, either.

I am normally, by temperament, an optimist, but depression inverted my personality and made me a pessimist for a number of years. I hated it.

Optimism and pessimism have very little to do with rationality or real situations. Neither aspect is irrational: just that they're a matter of gut reaction, which is spontaneous and subconscious.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Optimism and pessimism have very little to do with rationality or real situations. Neither aspect is irrational: just that they're a matter of gut reaction, which is spontaneous and subconscious.

I'm inclined to disagree. I think it's about learned responses. I was convinced for years that my life could only get better. I did well at university, and was full of confidence that the world was at my feet. As the years passed, and the rejection letters mounted up, I could no longer believe that in the face of overwhelming evidence otherwise. Every time my hopes were built up over a job application, they would be dashed. You stop hoping when you realise that it only gets you hurt more.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I think it's about learned responses.

I had a sense you were going to say that - ! And I of course have no way to prove my case, one way or the other.

If it is a matter of learned responses, then, does one person learn one set of responses, and another learn a different set, from essentially the same experiences?

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Because some people don't know any better. They fail to learn from experiences.

If someone holds to a world-view, despite experiences that prove it to be wrong or at any rate cast serious doubt on its validity, they are either deluded or stupid.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

some people don't know any better. They fail to learn from experiences

I'd say that people learn different things from different or similar experiences. Some learn that optimism keeps them going. Wouldn't you rather feel better if you could?

The world-view can be one way or another - it has nothing to do with temperament, which is established by neuro-chemistry - and can of course be changed, and often is. Hence my descent into depression. Recovering from depression was not a matter of changing my circumstances, it was a matter of changing my neuro-chemistry with pills and regaining physical health. My circumstances haven't changed much at all. What has changed is my ability to cope with them.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't you rather feel better if you could?

Not if it meant putting on blinkers, living in a fool's paradise of unrealistic hopes that would never be met, and ignoring the wider socio-economic/cultural climate. I have seen the economic and social fabric of this country torn up and twisted into something ugly since 1980. Had I been 15, 20 years older than I am, I could probably have got the sort of job and life I expected, and now be nearing retirement. But I would still have had to cope with the dumbing-down of teaching, of the rise of a cheap celebrity culture that devalues learning and genuine achievement. Some of my older friends who are in academic teaching are now looking forward to retirement because they are disillusioned with what higher education has become. Museums, too - I've told you what's happened there.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I agree with all your comments about how rotten the world is, but I don't think that is a matter of temperament one way or the other, though the line between disillusionment and depression is a fine one.

As you know, I think it's important to have a sense of reality - to see truth as it is, good or bad.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

As you know, I think it's important to have a sense of reality - to see truth as it is, good or bad.

Yes. The wider situation has changed from what it was when I set out on my journey: it's become more difficult. I'd be a fool to pretend otherwise.