Optimism and Pessimism

It felt like the last one was a little negative and I don’t want to necessarily convey that, so this seems like a good chance to explain some thoughts on being an optimist or being a pessimist.

The difference between an optimist and a pessimist can be summed up by an old expression: An optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds and a pessimist fears that it is. 

Another view of the optimist versus pessimist is the glass half full or empty thing.  Take the glass that is pictured. Is the glass half-full or half-empty? It’s actually not about being positive or negative, it is about intent. If you’re pouring water into it and stop, most would say it is “half-full” because the intent is to fill the glass. If you’re drinking from it and stop at that point, the intent is to empty it and therefore most would say it is half-empty. 

The point here is that we have to look at intention as well as how things are. It’s not enough to just see the results of various actions (unidentified government agents grabbing people off the streets, killing people on boats without explanation, defending Christians in an African country, but not in Ukraine etc.) because one also has to see the intent behind these actions. And it doesn’t seem all that good.