/lit/ - Literature

Cynicism/pessimism and optimism are not two sides to the same coin. Optimism is the natural state for humans, and the reason why anyone does anything. You don't have to have a shit-eating grin all day, but if you truly feel that life is pain and that people are inherently selfish then you have no right doing anything besides killing yourself. To go to work, to enjoy a conversation with anyone, or to enjoy any kind of art is to be optimistic and see the value in at least one thing in your life.

You can believe that life and people are mostly good with a few smatterings of evil, pain and selfishness because then you can still get out of bed and go through your day, dragging the bad things around until they wear away to nothing, or until you become strong enough not to notice them.

If you believe the world is mostly bad with a smattering of good you are saying the good doesn't make up for the bad, and that there is no point in anything, that you should just sit back and remain passive until any good you do see is swallowed in your cynicism.

A body in motion stays in motion; a body at rest stays at rest. Optimism is hope, and hope is action, which becomes progress. Cynicism is futility, and futility begets inaction.

Optimistic people who see the good things in life build cities, invent new things, and having loving families (all of which in turn make life more pleasurable. Cynical people simply become more and more cynical as they age, until they become cranky old misers.

And I'm sure Patton was an optomist. The damn guy led us to victory over the Nazi's. If he had been all "boo fuckin hoo, war is hell, war is man's just exercising his natural state of savagery, life is futile, politics are futile, Nazi's, Commies, Japs, and FDR are all just self-serving pigs like myself and all other humans" guess fuckin what? We'd all be speaking German now.