Do you have a problem with optimism? It's ok if you do!

I think I'm leaning "It's ok if you do" but I need to see how things play out, so I gave us time.

My brain, ever the stoic, considers it foolish to harbor much optimism or pessimism about things which are largely outside of my direct control. My heart, OTOH, is constantly saying "we're fucked."

I don't have much use for the optimism/pessimism binary; better for me to do what I can with the resources, mental and otherwise, at my disposal. At the same time I've no patience for people who mistake pessimism with realism -- but I haven't met many of those people. I've rolled my eyes more than a few times on ILX at posters, but they're nothing next to the Eeyores I've seen elsewhere, and, yeah, they tend to be men and chronically online.

it’s ok if you do!

i love optimism. and it’s ok if you do! yes.

for example, let’s say you got a bunch of naysayers who can’t stop mentioning the giant boulder that is crashing down the mountain toward the town, the one that the scientists warned about and was on the cover of Boulder Prediction Quarterly two issues ago. okaaaaaay we get it, there’s a _boulder_ coming toward the town! but what if, in addition to that possibility of the world famous boulder that’s been on the move toward the town, down the mountain, for nearly 3 days now, just rolling down mountains and valleys and working its way down to sea level, where this town is, and is only 600 feet away now, what if addition to that idea, there’s also the idea that it would just finally stop, just short of the orphanage. the orphanage on the edge of the town, facing the mountain and the boulder? what if it just didn’t do that? what is everyone's problem with that kind of optimism?

and that’s why i’m confident that we can completely cut funding to _hospitals_ and go on vacation right now, let’s stop pretending that boulders tumbling down hills don’t occasionally stop just short of orphanages, because they do every day if you have eyes to see it

Optimism and pessimism are fine. It's naiveté that burns my ass.

As ever, the answer is a boring “it depends”

I don’t like the kind of optimist who says “we’ll be fine!” when actually they mean “I’ll be fine!”

Equally, the kind of pessimist that says “this never works” when they really means “this never works for me”

i think there's something to be said for the energy behind optimism. just for a baseline feeling of "you can do a hard thing". it's an important bit of energy imo. my partner tends to have it more than i do. i consider myself very realistic when i'm looking at doing something or making a change, but sometimes the realism shades into "this is just how things are and it's hopeless to try and do something different". which, of course, isn't true.

I can’t really comprehend having a “problem” with something so abstract but I do have a problem with people telling me how I should feel or just being condescending/patronizing or whatever

I have a problem with optimism and pessimism if the person who holds to one or the other gets pissy about thoughts that harsh their worldview.

Other people’s optimism or pessimism can depress me if it’s far too prominent. I generally have a feeling of being neutral, but any reflections on old age are likely to bring out my pessimistic side.

Optimism is fine. Blind optimism and magical thinking are not. I am relatively optimistic about the aspects of my own life that are within my own control, because I have figured out how to do a lot of different things, I can make myself look good on paper, and I am not afraid to cheat or obfuscate a little here and there (which is sort of a subcategory of the second thing, and a very necessary life skill in a lawless country).

The aspects of my lie that are out of my control are... out of my control. So being optimistic or pessimistic about them is kind of pointless.

The aspects of my *life*...

of course optimism and pessimism are very general and vague concepts and when they're brought up i often feel like they're being used as cover for something else. they're very easily weaponized, like a lot of general concepts about how people are or how they should be.

I do not, altho I might occasionally question it when I feel like it's a stretch

Yep, well said.

Also both concepts.. don’t really work well with my attempts to cultivate mindfulness

xp to map

depends on how it's wielded

when it comes to matters that have few known constraints, like "will I have a good day tomorrow?", I'm ever the optimist. when I see factors that place certain limits on the possible, like "I'm going to the dentist tomorrow", I'm likely to expect outcomes at the optimistic end of what feels most probable. that's how my optimism plays out.

when I recognize narrow constraints on the possible that tend to produce bad outcomes, such as "my landlord gave me notice of eviction" I give in and expect a bad outcome, even if a good outcome is somehow conceivable, though highly improbable. that's how my pessimism plays out.

Also both concepts.. don’t really work well with my attempts to cultivate mindfulness

totally. i don't think they're very compatible with mindfulness. because there's an element of divining the future in them--an attachment to outcome. i do think that "hope" is compatible with mindfulness though. not in the common sense of the word meaning "i hope i have a lot of money tomorrow". more roundabout meanings like "open to possibility" and "trusting in the good of regular action".

but how much meaning drift is that to rescue a word like "optimism" - dialing back the attachment to a simple belief in the existence of goodness.

I agree that optimism can be a very important source of energy. Sadly it comes to me with great difficulty so when low on reserves I instead try to revert to the cheerful determination of soldiers about to launch a suicide attack in a wwii film.

I don't do pessimism as a bit, it's just I've been around long enough to see how things are getting horribly worse on a year on year basis and see the various forces that feed into things getting much fucking worse in the future. And this is all very real. A note of optimism is that if I didn't have this dread commentary running in my head that I'll likely end up either dead, homeless or in severe poverty in the next decade (lol). If I didn't feel this so strongly then I might not try and do my bit to change things for the better. Recently I have opened myself up to a small level of optimism again by joining a political party. I think that is a sign that I have not completely given up, rather than outright optimism.

in some parts of my life, optimism comes easily, even in the face of adversity, and helps me to overcome problems. in other parts, less so. i don't really know why that is or how to be more consistently optimistic, or whether i should.

i would say in general i am more pessimistic about things i can't control, whether that's societal or political stuff, or parts of my personal life that feel that way, the latter again probably crucially subjective, lol.

If I didn't have hope I would just be unhappy, and I simply couldn't live like that.

Life is bleak on a personal level and on a broader societal level but I refuse to let it defeat me, I have to work hard to be optimistic but it's better than the alternative.

There's a lad at work who is performatively a miserable old sod and it genuinely fucks with my mental health if I'm exposed to it on a smoke break. I tune it out mostly. I doubt I'm optimistic in any meaningful sense but I hate the act of revelling in the shitness of things.

Mindfulness and resilience (including developing the ability to live with uncomfortable thoughts/ emotions), mean more to me than optimism or pessimism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao4gKsFpqys

Cute thread. Would be interesting if the author of the thread decided to share with us his POV, if he’s courageous enough to do so. I think this started as a joke thread but people are posting for serious on it, which is fucking cool as shit.

There's a lad at work who is performatively a miserable old sod and it genuinely fucks with my mental health if I'm exposed to it on a smoke break. I tune it out mostly. I doubt I'm optimistic in any meaningful sense but I hate the act of revelling in the shitness of things.

A lot of *guys* (myself included, sometimes!) seem to enjoy their cynicism and pessimism. Who kind of revel in it. I wonder what they are getting out of being so negative all the time? Things are fucked. Yeah they sure are. . . That doesn’t mean they are going to be fucked forever, and we also can’t see into the future. Go volunteer somewhere and help someone who has it worse off than you, and keep doing it. See if your outlook changes. Or go talk to a professional. Enjoying/reveling in the shit of things isn’t healthy.

Some of the stuff written about on the politics threads here is basically complying in advance and can get pretty nasty and condescending, again par for the course with guys. A general defensiveness sets in if you point out we have no idea what the future holds. (Which yes, itself can be unhelpful for some people, but as Alfred says you can roll your eyes at posters here, we’ve all done it.)

I dunno, go take a walk or something.

haha there is a lot of .. energy in that post.

i'm going to try and be kinda sober and serious and thoughtful and not-dismissive. so one important practice for me, personally, in trying to cultivate hope, or more of the positive, expansive feeling of good will that pre-forms 'optimism,' whatever that is, is to try and cultivate interior peace and a certain quietness of mind. a mind that isn't overstimulated by panic triggers everywhere that it doesn't really need to be stimulated by .. but that maybe we tell ourselves it needs to be stimulated by in order to be "good people" or whatever. constant political news and discourse via the internet is very much that for me. i don't want to get too bogged down on that subject in this post but suffice it to say i don't need daily political exposure to know that empires crumble and the world runs on blood but that love is and always was triumphant. when i look around me, in physical space, right now, in this room, i see a roof over my head in the rain, a heater that works (and that i can afford to pay for monthly), light during the time of dark that is accumulating through the end of the year, and the gift of beautiful music beamed halfway across the world. i see this chubby little furball of a feline next to me thwacking his surprisingly heavy tail against my elbow. i see evidence of a endlessly patient and tender partnership built with a special man over a long stretch of the heights of my manhood. life is an infinite combination of strange particularities and miraculous forces pushing into being unimaginably complex, absurd, lightly hilarious, feather-light sun-bright points and moments of unbearable beauty. no i didn't just drop acid or something i'm just trying to describe the indescribable.

post itt that’s not just a roundabout way of saying ‘pessimism of the intellect optimism of the will’ challenge (impossible)

maybe related, but I’ve been getting increasingly tilted when people ask me “are you ok?” as if I’m at some Christian church festival.

It's been refreshing entering a hospital system and meeting doctors that equally match realistic cynicism and serious abiding humanistic care at the same time. Made me realise the that cynicism and pessimism are not a direct match, and that they're arguably at their worst when superimposed. Pessimism dud when it paralyses, optimism dud when it lobotomises.

no i didn't just drop acid or something i'm just trying to describe the indescribable.

Yes mindfulness is difficult to describe without coming across in this way or as a new ager mystic. I think of it as the relaxed state when the tired repetitive thought-loops of your own personal drama fall silent - and you see the world is its amazingness.

There’s a phrase I picked up somewhere which resonates with me: “beyond thought, beyond words, we are already there”.

Cute thread. Would be interesting if the author of the thread decided to share with us his POV, if he’s courageous enough to do so. I think this started as a joke thread but people are posting for serious on it, which is fucking cool as shit.

A lot of *guys* (myself included, sometimes!) seem to enjoy their cynicism and pessimism. Who kind of revel in it. I wonder what they are getting out of being so negative all the time? Things are fucked. Yeah they sure are. . . That doesn’t mean they are going to be fucked forever, and we also can’t see into the future. Go volunteer somewhere and help someone who has it worse off than you, and keep doing it. See if your outlook changes. Or go talk to a professional. Enjoying/reveling in the shit of things isn’t healthy.

Some of the stuff written about on the politics threads here is basically complying in advance and can get pretty nasty and condescending, again par for the course with guys. A general defensiveness sets in if you point out we have no idea what the future holds. (Which yes, itself can be unhelpful for some people, but as Alfred says you can roll your eyes at posters here, we’ve all done it.)

I dunno, go take a walk or something.

I personally find a lot of joy in life by focusing on small things like feeding stray cats, spending time with my wife, videos of my 1 yo nephew, cooking, listening to music, and reading. On a personal level, I agree, positivity is best.

Saying, "we have no idea what the future holds" is of course true but also basically meaningless. You also said this in support of the proposition that it was possible the Dems could win a veto proof majority in Congress in 2026, then argued with anyone who pointed out that was almost mathematically impossible or that the Dems should consider the possibility that they will not. That doesn't seem positive to me, it seems like magical thinking.

That being said, I will be the change I want to see in the world by not shitting up my joke thread further with more political nonsense and let people discuss the actual topic seriously if they want to.

I think a lot of people that are performatively cynical might be influenced by the fact that all the “coolest” and smartest “badass” characters are like this. For example Slow Horses. “Seeing through fucking bullshit” becomes your personality or something

you kind of have to buy into a little bit of bullshit in order to stay alive ime... boxedjoy kind of gets at this in their post. people who are sort of over-pessimistic or over-critical... either they have some financial cushion that allows them to make this their identity or that is going to be sanded off of them over time. because when it comes to independently supporting oneself somehow, performative positivity is a survival trait. and it makes it easier if the positivity is somewhat authentic.

great post last night, map!

That doesn't seem positive to me, it seems like magical thinking.

Fair enough, and thanks for the decent response. I won't be shitting up this thread anymore with my magical thinking but I am enjoying what people are writing on here.

i think there's something to be said for the energy behind optimism. just for a baseline feeling of "you can do a hard thing".

For sure! Thanks for that, I appreciated that post.

I think I'm an optimist? For certain definitions natch obv but like, those of us that wake up tomorrow are just gonna do our best and there will be value in that. And I like to laugh and feel joy and be amused and interested in people and things which is kinda inherently optimistic and rewards "looking on the bright side" if that doesn't need to be so interrogated that it loses all meaning.

I'm kinda with Alfred, I find optimism and pessimism are just manifestations of realism.

One thing I dislike is the "it's ok if you do [have a problem with optimism]!" I remember reading some years ago some threads about 'toxic positivity', which was something that irked me-- first that the usage of the term "toxic" was (as it often is) describing "causes harm to those around them" rather than "causes harm to the self"; correct usage of the word "toxic" ime provides the most utility. But the point of these threads was that they sought to criticise those who affect (or embody) a constantly positive outlook, as if this turned a blind eye to others who might not have (or be able to have) such an outlook. My experience has shown that "positivity" (different than optimism, I guess) is broadly a pretty constructive thing for anyone in any situation.

One term/outlook that I kind of had a private war with, twenty years ago, was the rise of the usage of the word "chill" and "soothe", which suggested to me a preference toward unstimulating experiences, and I like to be stimulated, if anything, I prefer it.

great post last night, map!

― z_tbd, Sunday, October 12, 2025 4:38 PM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

thanks :)

xp io you strike me as very optimistic fwiw

I've been working to organize my coworkers into a union. I'm convinced you have to be optimistic for that in order to keep going.

But that's a close-to-me, personal effort. I know nearly everyone who is or could be involved with our union at least by face/name. It's roughly 150-160 people. For things that depend largely upon the actions of others, I am not optimistic. In my life I've seen seemingly simple mass tasks like addressing climate change, ending wealth inequality, hell even things like paving roads and housing people go down in flames because of the greed, selfishness, and general ignorance of my fellow humans. I was raised by two anthropologists and believe that people work best in small groups, which only enhances my pessimism about mass projects and politics.

I think it's a losing proposition to plan for the future based on optimism and that definitely includes politics. You have to learn how to lose and expect it to happen, perhaps even the majority of the time.

More than anything I think my anti-optimism is another side of self-reliance, a know-thyself kind of thing. Don't have heroes, plan for negative results, love people, hate power.

I think it's a losing proposition to plan for the future based on optimism and that definitely includes politics. You have to learn how to lose and expect it to happen, perhaps even the majority of the time.

Ta-Nehisi Coates said something similar in his chat with Ezra Klein a few weeks ago.

Good luck with your efforts.

I have been thinking for the last week about map's posts on this thread, which led to the following exchange with my wife:

PBKR: [Explains thread to wife.] Am I "performatively negative"?
Ms. PBKR: "If you look up 'performatively negative' in the dictionary, it has your name in the definition".
PBKR: Hmmmmm.

I think this is something I need to work on.

haha harsh. it's hard. i wonder how she feels about that. it's wild how much negative stuff i used to think and feel. i firmly believe in the cliche that if someone is thinking or feeling or saying negative, critical stuff about someone or something else or the world at large, they are mean to themselves on the regular in ways that they probably can't even see anymore. we're told that criticism is good ("constructive criticism") but i honestly think that's horseshit. we never get to the really good stuff through criticism. i gave myself a me day today because i knew that sitting at a desk all day doing stupid stuff was going to make me miserable. it's funny how when i do something good for myself i have to try not to feel guilty about it. but i've resolved to be really kind to myself today. that feels right.

I wish I knew how to 'action' that, map. The being reflexively kinder to oneself/the world. We've discussed elsewhere how meditation can help short circuit this stuff, but it feels like an endless battle with mood and the timbre of being. Like, to some extent, I can work with my body to counteract ageing and discomfort but I don't know with mood. Despite *knowing* this isn't the case, the body-consciousness of mood is too deep and I'm like the tide trying to control gravity or something.

All of which is to say, I'm undoubtedly performatively negative. My entire sense of humour is built around it, ffs.

^^^
The difference between me and my wife is even though our humor skews negative/cynical, when presented with roadblocks she wants to roll up her sleeves and figure out how to get past it and I want to curl up and die next to the roadblock.

me controlling my moods is never gonna happen. i honestly think they're just like the weather. out of my control. but on the other hand i do think i have some control over hating people in traffic. or, like, saying bitchy things in my head to people i pass just for fun. that stuff can feel like a counterbalance to my poor mood in the moment but it really just exacerbates it. everyone feels sad or angry on the regular. those feelings are normal. directing those feelings outward instead of feeling them and taking care of them is the bad thing, i think.

i'm also very easily overwhelmed by looming problems. they become scary to me quickly. my default is to kick the can down the road. put my head in the sand. i don't do 'proactive' very well. i want problems to go away. i want to spend as little time as possible working on them before they're gone, or gone until tomorrow. what i've realized is that any time i can free myself of a deadline and just schedule in regular "small bite" moments that are thoughtfully aimed toward solving larger problems - give myself permission to do a little at a time - that tends to work much better for me. i become less focused on achieving an outcome right away and more on doing the good act that, when accumulated, makes it more likely that a good outcome arrives. outcomes are always unexpected imho, we retroactively try and make sense of them. another cliche i firmly believe in - the journey is more important than the destination.

also for people cohabitating with loved ones, sometimes it's ok to just ask for a hug or a cuddle. 'i'm feeling bad. can you give me some love?' totally worth it.

or, like, saying bitchy things in my head to people i pass just for fun.

i don't know if I am ever going to stop doing this, but one thing helped me/my frame of mind in a big way was learning to NOT do this to myself, talk down to myself, talk shit at myself. it was really really bad. i would be so mean to myself. i think it's probably helped me from saying crappy things to people in my head because I talk shit less, but i still talk shit when i'm, like behind the wheel of the car. but i used to say far worse stuff to myself in my head. so, progress!

i'm glad to hear you do that to yourself less - you absolutely deserve it.