Writer's Block: Half full?
Dec. 30th, 2011 11:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tabular_rasa[Error: unknown template qotd]
Depends on what you mean by optimist and pessimist. On the one hand, I'm a pessimist in the sense that I always expect the worst of unknown situations. Frankly I think it's stupid to always believe the best is going to happen, because you're just asking to be disappointed! If you expect the worst, you either get exactly what you expected or you're happily surprised. I tend to worry a lot about things before they happen but they almost never end up as bad as I imagine. I'd rather do this than get all excited in anticipation only to be let down.
On the other, my ability to have faith in people makes me an optimist by some definitions. While I certainly don't expect people to do the right thing or behave positively towards each other all the time and am very well aware how selfish, ignorant, and downright cruel they can be, I also know that much of this is circumstantial and doesn't indicate people aren't capable of positive behavior given a different set of conditions. I have faith that most people are capable of change and positive behavior under the right conditions.
I'm also pretty good about making the best of a bad situation once it has occurred. There's usually a period of moping and despair in there proportionate to the level of disappointment, but once it's out of my system I move on pretty cleanly. I have a grieving period and then I work with what I have left. At a certain point it stops being the circumstances holding you back, but you yourself.
Also as a side note, I hate the expression "half-empty" and "half-full" to describe pessimism and optimism. Who the fuck looks at a glass of liquid and describes it in relation to the lack of liquid? Even the most depressive, fatalistic people I know refer to a glass as "half full of [whatever]" rather than "half not full." Maybe if this were rephrased as "If half your drink is left, do you say you're 'halfway done' or 'still have half to go'" it would make more sense, but I could write a short book on how many cliche expressions misrepresent themselves in their wording. ("Have your cake and eat it too"-- DOESN'T EATING IMPLY HAVING??). Personally I'm more partial to variations on the story of optimist and pessimist kids presented with a room full of shit.
Depends on what you mean by optimist and pessimist. On the one hand, I'm a pessimist in the sense that I always expect the worst of unknown situations. Frankly I think it's stupid to always believe the best is going to happen, because you're just asking to be disappointed! If you expect the worst, you either get exactly what you expected or you're happily surprised. I tend to worry a lot about things before they happen but they almost never end up as bad as I imagine. I'd rather do this than get all excited in anticipation only to be let down.
On the other, my ability to have faith in people makes me an optimist by some definitions. While I certainly don't expect people to do the right thing or behave positively towards each other all the time and am very well aware how selfish, ignorant, and downright cruel they can be, I also know that much of this is circumstantial and doesn't indicate people aren't capable of positive behavior given a different set of conditions. I have faith that most people are capable of change and positive behavior under the right conditions.
I'm also pretty good about making the best of a bad situation once it has occurred. There's usually a period of moping and despair in there proportionate to the level of disappointment, but once it's out of my system I move on pretty cleanly. I have a grieving period and then I work with what I have left. At a certain point it stops being the circumstances holding you back, but you yourself.
Also as a side note, I hate the expression "half-empty" and "half-full" to describe pessimism and optimism. Who the fuck looks at a glass of liquid and describes it in relation to the lack of liquid? Even the most depressive, fatalistic people I know refer to a glass as "half full of [whatever]" rather than "half not full." Maybe if this were rephrased as "If half your drink is left, do you say you're 'halfway done' or 'still have half to go'" it would make more sense, but I could write a short book on how many cliche expressions misrepresent themselves in their wording. ("Have your cake and eat it too"-- DOESN'T EATING IMPLY HAVING??). Personally I'm more partial to variations on the story of optimist and pessimist kids presented with a room full of shit.
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Date: 2011-12-30 08:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-31 07:33 am (UTC)There's usually a period of moping and despair in there proportionate to the level of disappointment, but once it's out of my system I move on pretty cleanly.
I'm with you here. I think I used to have a lot more trouble with this. I tend to move on from bad situations a lot more quickly than I used to. While life can be disappointing, it's about seeing past that and moving ahead anyway, I suppose. I'm also currently experimenting with, "I don't know how this is going to go, so I'm not going to worry about it right now" rather than thinking about possibilities and things that could go wrong. Not sure how long that will last, but yeah. It's interesting not being holed up in my head so much, I suppose.
Oh, as an aside (and you've probably already thought of this, but it's just in my head now), I think the famous cake cliche refers more to a Schrodinger's cat type of conundrum in that you can't have the cake in front of you and eat it simultaneously, as eating it makes it disappear. Anyway, I'm tired and if this made no sense, sorry.
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Date: 2011-12-31 10:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-01 04:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-01 04:55 am (UTC)