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The liberating power of optimism


Well. These two tweets blared out at me yesterday:

Now, this can't be right. I've been told ad nauseam by the great and the good that Democrats are heading towards a shellacking. I've also been told by those on the left that Democrats are do-nothings who deserve to lose and usher in a Thousand Year Republican Reich, and the only way to stop that is by violent street action.

And yet. Democrats have been raking in the cash since Dobbs. The generic ballot polling shows Democrats with leads anywhere from 3% to 10%. Polling also shows Democrats expanding their seats in the Senate. As hard as I try, I can't find it in myself to see doom in this.

I'm a glass-half-full kind of guy. I have my dark moments. But my default mode is optimism. With all that's going on in the world, one may ask why. Why am I so optimistic, so confident that things will work out?

Well, one reason is because I've been on this piece of rock hurtling through space for just over half a century. I've not seen everything, but I've seen a few things. And, stutteringly, fitfully, with backsliding, things do get better. I've experienced it in my personal life, and I see it in the world around me. So much work is left to be done. So much work will always be left to be done. The task of self-actualization is never over. But the reason that the years under Donald Trump, and our current unsettled times, are so shocking is because we expect more as a people. We expect peace and prosperity. We expect cultural and social advance. It's what we've grown accustomed to. And when something happens to shatter that expectation, it's noticeable. Trump's rancid fascist populism was an affront to what America was becoming. Vladimir Putin's return to empire-building is an affront to a rules-based, liberal democratic world order. If things were as dire as the doomscrollers say it is, then the reaction to these events would have been far less explosive. They would have been greeted with a quiet resignation. Instead, those in opposition were energized. They were jolted into action. 

As a species, we are on the cusp of leaving our adolescence behind. It won't come easily. Men like Putin and Trump will try to yank us back to dependence. But we don't want it. We don't need it. We won't have it. It's sad that it takes the worst to happen to make us take action. But that, too, is all too human. And the actions we take speak to the world we want to create. 

Many influential people, on all points of the political spectrum, thrive on doom. They get their power from dispiriting their followers, or by enraging them. They do their best to tell others to abandon all hope. These people will never lead anyone to a better life. They will never lead anyone to a human life. They're not truth-tellers; they take the worst and amplify it, because it brings them influence in ways small and large. These are the people we should shun. They offer nothing of value. They harm our well-being, all for their own purposes.

I'm optimistic because it's both easier and healthier. Pessimism requires work. It requires effort to seek out the bad at all times, and dwell on it to the exclusion of all else. And pessimism does nothing for your health, either mental or physical. Optimism is actually an evolutionary advantage; seeing opportunity rather than peril enhances your chances for success. And it's liberating to not be mired in a slough of despond. 

This isn't to say "don't worry, be happy." But this is to say to find the good every day. And if you don't find the good, then figure out what you can do in your own way to make things good. It is the only way we ever achieve real progress.
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