Optimists are dreamers and spinners of tall tales who’ve lost all touch with reality. Oh yes, that sentence has a kernel of truth in it, provided the rest of the sentence gets drowned out in the racket. I like the first part of every optimist: the Option. And what should it look like, this option, this choosing of my very own slice of optimism?
Either I sit on the chesterfield of life and think, “It’ll be fine.” Oh dear. That sounds more like pure passive hope, seasoned with a pinch or two of fatalism. Or I get up, put on my shoes, and make sure myself that it’ll be fine.
Oh no, is a seminar on life management lurking around that notorious corner?
Hmm, let me think. No. Certainly not. I’m just thinking, on this cold November morning at half past five. And I’m looking back on my own history, to see which of the two models — optimism or pessimism — has served better. As I said: just for my own life. The verdict comes out fairly clear, and fairly optimistic.
Sorry.
Since my own personal drama of complete defeat, this little sentence kept showing up whenever the problems gathered into a mass demonstration in my head. “Giving up is for letters at the post office. Not for me.”
With that, I tickled not just my optimism gene, but my fighting spirit. Why should I give up? Because the problems seem too numerous and unsolvable? Well, that would be one option. But not mine. After all, evolution handed me a more or less well-equipped brain. And in the human brain there are departments busy with imagination, ideas, and coincidence. That was, essentially, the equipment that coloured me optimistic.
I haven’t counted how often I heard the sentence: “You’ll never get yourself out of this mess.” Or “Just give up!” Of course I listened, and wondered whether such comments from friends and from officials were justified. Well, the comments certainly were, since after all a few heads had done some thinking once they got to know my story. I always found that a good thing too — when empathy leads to conclusions.
The usual back-and-forth of thoughts is a fine fitness program for the synapses. And it often leads to a laying-out in the cerebellum under the heading: “So what does this look like, then?”
Mostly these thoughts led to what I call conclu-quotes — short sentences that got me moving. And, naturally, tons of notepaper, so as not to lose a single one of the optimistic-constructive ideas in the haystack.
One of these sentences was: “Optimism lets chances arise.” Or opportunities, ways out, approaches for tackling one or several problems. By the way: problems like it when you take care of them. Because they themselves aren’t happy going through the world forever labelled a problem. They want to be solved. Well then!
At some point the first three letters, OPT, made themselves more noticeable. Option — that was the helpful hint for how to approach problems.
How so?
Well, I can only point to my own situation, and it’s anything but scientific. I believe experience is the word of the hour. Looking at this laid-out array of problems, I’d ask myself: So, what comes to mind? Then the train of synapses got moving and staged a chaotic-looking synposium. All the synapsters pushed, shoved, and dashed about the imagined room. Chaos in its purest state isn’t much help, but it’s a good show.
At some point, amid the tohuwabohu, a few splinter-thoughts surfaced from the uniform mass of the brain. Aha, there’s something! I still think back, now and again, to that time of searching for a way out. Again and again I discovered a little door I wanted to open. And behind it waited more questions still, but also answers, or possibilities.
Every time, my heart and my imagination would leap when I got hold of a corner of some option. Oh, that could be a possibility. Or maybe that one over there?
This circus of opportunities is one of the most refreshing moments optimism offers me. And it still does, even though my problems these days have settled back into a normal range.
Since then I’ve been pleading for more optimism, with activism as its partner. The two of them are busy searching every single day. They look, they weigh, they offer up results that are willing to be developed further. Why would I give up functions like that?
Sometimes someone asks me: Why not just ask artificial intelligence?
No, I’m rather fond of my natural and limited intelligence. We’ve known each other for seventy-one years and we trust one another. What’s more, I like that feeling of happiness when the two of us — my intelligence and I — have tinkered together and shaped up some options.
And in certain moments, serendipity joins in, and then the party really gets going.
How about you — optimist, pessimist, or somewhere in between? Write to me: story@swisschris.ca
