by bigfloppydog 8 Replies latest jw friends
I would like to ask a question. It is about "Pessimism," verses "Optimism." which are you and if one is Pessimistic, how do you help change that? What makes a person one way or the other?
Do you see the dark side of life and things or the light side?
I'm a realist that tries to stay positive.
good question doggie, in the winter I am light and in the summer I am dark so I guess putting two and two together I guess I am optimistic in summer and pessimistic in winter. hehehehehe
kittykat
ofc.
Edited by - orangefatcat on 21 August 2002 9:56:8
I try to find the humor in life..even the dark side of life..people think i am insensitive...im not..its just a coping mechinism..works for me and I feel happy most of the time.
Oh no.... there isn't many replies to your question!! But on the other hand wow, look at all these posts you have had on your subject.
Seriously, though as part of the Borg we were drones, going round making people misarable, and we were only happy when we moaned about world conditions.
I'm more optimistic. Today the manual transmission in my truck seized as I was barreling down the highway at 75MPH. I managed to get to the shoulder of the road and coast down an exit ramp. One tow truck ride later and I think to myself "whew - even my bad luck is good". Things can always be a lot worse.
I'll second that, minimus.
A realist that tries to stay positive.
Or sometimes I say,
I prepare for the worst, but hope for the best.
What is a pessimist? An optimist with experience.
Perception is just an experience -- and as such antecedes any judgment of "rightness" or "wrongness;" "truth" or "falsehood." Perception just is. (In a similar way, a moss-covered rock is neither true nor false; it is only what it is -- a moss-covered rock.) Evaluating something is technically an experience, too, in that it is the movement of atoms. But it is a very different kind of experience than perception. Perception involves an experience between the body and an external object; evaluation is a self-generative experience which occurs solely within the body. In one sense, an evaluation "just is" the same way that a perception "just is;" both consist of atoms moving in a particular way. But in another sense, we evaluate ABOUT something else, and thus can reach correct or incorrect evaluations, about that other thing. (I can correctly evaluate "sour-ness" to be an event between my body and a lemon, or I can incorrectly evaluate "sour-ness" to itself be an existing entity.) The standard for my evaluations is the actual nature of things.
