An optimist, as the popular story goes, is "the fellow who falls from a ten-story building and when he passes the fifth floor they hear him say: 'Well, so far so good!'"

The question of whether one is an optimist or pessimist pops up now and again. I consider myself a realist which people might think is a cop-out but I don't think so. I like to or rather I am compelled to see reality in its own hues instead of making it brighter or bluer than it is, though I have to admit that my tendency, given that reality itself is a matter of perspective, is more towards pessimism. If I were falling from the building I would consider myself dead at the first moment - hehe - though I suppose if I survived that would be a positively pleasant outcome for me? Would it not? I don't believe in passively waiting for an outcome though. I guess my brand of realism or pessimism is all about trying to avert the worst with action rather than letting it happen. In that sense, I see it as a productive force than the opposite.

Optimism, on the contrary, when it puts a positive spin on things no matter how they really are or when it turns a blind eye to them, seems quite toxic to me. There is these days a lot of general acknowledgement of toxic positivity but I find that in practice it is extremely difficult to resist it or to question it. Given how much of a premium society places on cheerfulness, happiness, positivity and the like, even if with no solid substance. All the bestselling self-help books no doubt point to this. Anyone trying to question these could seem like a Debbie downer or mischief-maker or disruptor or anything unsavoury you could think of. Toxic positivity to my mind is all about maintaining the status quo. Maintaining a facade that actually is conducive to happiness for some and not for others, not the people on the margins or fringes. People who are not happy in these conditions might be accused of trying to prick the balloon of positivity if they were to voice their feelings about how things really are. Though they would find it hard to even voice them in a climate where positivity is upheld for its own sake. Which is why I prefer to be in atmospheres or among people who appreciate or welcome realism/pessimism/criticism. I see disruption of fake positivity as a good thing. As something that could pave the way for actual positive things. Rather than simply adopting a mind-set of positivity because it’s easier or because one's own position is secure under the status quo.

One could put lipstick on an ill person and pretend they are well or one could face up to a true diagnosis even if it's uncomfortable. What works in the long term is anyone's guess.

“Duke Huan of Chi’i was reading a book at the upper end of the hall; the wheelwright was making a wheel at the lower end. Putting aside his mallet and chisel, he called to the Duke and asked him what book he was reading. ‘One that records the words of the Sages,’ answered the Duke. ‘Are those Sages alive?’ asked the wheelwright. ‘Oh, no,’ said the Duke, ‘they are dead.’ ‘In that case,’ said the wheelwright, ‘what you are reading can be nothing but the lees and scum of bygone men.’ ‘How dare you, a wheelwright, find fault with the book I am reading. If you can explain your statement, I will let it pass. If not, you shall die.’ ‘Speaking as a wheelwright,’ he replied, ‘I look at the matter in this way; when I am making a wheel, if my stroke is too slow, then it bites deep but is not steady; if my stroke is too fast, then it is steady, but it does not go deep. The right pace, neither slow nor fast, cannot get into the hand unless it comes from the heart. It is a thing that cannot be put into rules; there is an art in it that I cannot explain to my son. That is why it is impossible for me to let him take over my work, and here I am at the age of seventy still making wheels. In my opinion it must have been the same with the men of old. All that was worth handing on, died with them; the rest, they put in their books. That is why I said that what you were reading was the lees and scum of bygone men.'” — Chuang Tzu

Cited in Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays, 1962, p.9

"I could tell you my adventures—beginning from this morning,” said Alice a little timidly; “but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.

~ Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that I am not the same person who went home a month ago. The things that bothered me before seemed so trivial in comparison to what confronted me now, not because they were trivial in any way, but I realized how trivial they can be in the grander scheme of things. In one case thankfully it did not lead to the worst and in another I can only pray that it doesn't. While I cannot speak of the second as it is not my own matter, the first was a health scare. A rather minor thing as it turned out but initially when I was really poorly and my imagination went a bit wild as it is wont to do, as you my dear reader knows better than anyone else, it struck me how very insignificant, even petty, everything else can seem if one's body doesn't feel right. I thought about how people with severe or chronic health problems might be forced to live life and nothing I was suffering in imagination or in reality could be even close to that experience.

I guess I was also made very vulnerable during this period, exposed to fears and insecurities that were lying dormant in me for a very long time. A bit like a person whose world turned upside down in an earthquake a very long time ago might feel when the earth suddenly seems to shake with tremors. Though one had almost forgotten the shock and horror of that distant time, it all comes tumbling back. But more than that what comes back is a sense of unstable ground, a sense of a shaky foothold in the world, a sense that one is not destined to let go of one's guard or be at ease, a sense that one must forever be conscious of one's place… or one will be reminded yet again.