Pessimism and Optimism

Pessimism and Optimism, like most other 'isms, are words. (for isms that are not words, see awesomeism, devaism)

The pessimist-optimist standoff is one of the oldest in history

There seems to be a choice that people need to make. Or one they make without realizing. I think it should be a conscious decision, because making a choice without realizing is like wetting the bed of life's choices. This blog will be your little plastic sheet. That doesn't mean you get to urinate anywhere, just saying

Well I'm writing this post to clear up misconceptions. There is no choice. Only one point of view is right in the long run. And if you've been reading my blog, you probably realize which one.

Cut to horizon, much fanfare, people cheering

Pessimism. Now if you didn't see that coming you really need to read my other posts and warm up to the idea. Because as four out of five doctors will tell you (that fifth one is always an asshole), that hatred keeps you warm. Fact of the matter is, pessimism and its flamboyant elder brother, cynicism, are the way of the future.

The famous established theories on pessimism so far are:

Murphy's Law: if anything can go wrong, it will.

O'Tooles Law: Murphy was an optimist.
Anything that can't go wrong, will go wrong.

And there are more, but there are always more and mentioning those will require to look beyond my current research method, of 'things I already know'

But I don't want to force my views upon you. Not directly, at least. So we'll get to the smart choice between pessimism and optimism, by a rigorous deductive process of 'don't choose the stupid one'

BOLD: that was in bold, and in caps. I'm glad you noticed. Now moving on, I've decided the best way to introduce the subject after already introducing it in the introduction, is an illustrative example.
Yes I do sound like a textbook, but that's because I’ve been forced to read far too many.

Example: Yes, in bold again. This subject isn't really sexy enough for italics. Now I've been fortunate enough to have a conversation with a pessimist, an optimist and a cynic, all of whom occupy different places inside my head

I met pessimist P, optimist O and cynic C, at bons which was close enough for everyone:

Me: I'm glad you guys could make it

O: Always happy
P: I was around
C: Meh

Me: Anyway

P: What the fuck is bons?

Me: It’s this place in the brain

C: It sounds gay
O:That's offensive, C
P: Shut up O-face

Me: Look, I know it’s in the brain. I studied this in school. And it's my fucking head so I know what I'm talking about

O: Sorry
P: Yeah, but it sucks
C: It is your head. For now

Me: Moving along, I'm going to ask you guys some questions, about your opinions about some stuff

O: Sure!
P: Awesome grammar, asshole
C: (yawns) We'll see

Me: Alright, lets decide finally, is the glass half-empty or half full?

O: Half-full!
P: huh?
C: There's a glass?

Me: Umm, okay, imagine a glass. And I pour water in it halfway, and then I leave it. Now is the glass, half-empty, or half full?

O: Half-full!
P: Half-empty
C: It's going to break anyway

Me: Alright, suppose God gave you three wishes that would be granted, what would you wish for?

O: I already have everything I could wish for!
P: That I got everything O wished for, and O would have nothing
C: What's this God person's motivation?

Me: Do you believe in miracles?

O: Of course!
P: No, duh!
C: Do you believe in my foot up your ass?

Me: You know, it's getting really easy to predict your answers

O: I'm sorry!
P: You should have seen that coming
C: So was that a question too?

Me: Interesting, okay. Tough one then, Do you believe in hell?

O: I like to think about happy things
P: Hell-yeah
C: So this isn't hell, then?

Me: Fine, What do you think the nature of existence is?

O: The brain is full of all these pretty colours
P: Everything ends
C: You wouldn't understand if I told you

C: How are you having this conversation with us anyway, I'm the cynic, O is the optimist, P is the pessimist. So what the fuck are you? Besides boring

Me: I am the fucking narrator. And you're in my head so you better shut up, or I'm going to run into a wall really fast

C: Whatever man, you know I'm the dominant part of your brain. Just shut up and let me take control again

Me: This interview is over. P and O, go back to your corners

O:Okay!
P: I knew this interview would end badly

Excuse me while I readjust my consciousness by doing that little dance that you do when you get water in your ear.

Someone did say I was psycho once, and I said
Thanks!
Really?
I knew it!

Anyway now that you have an idea of what we're talking about, I shall begin:

Origins Of Optimism:

In the beginning, Adam, you know, THE Adam, was sitting by a river in the garden of wherever. Adam was an optimist, because nothing was bad. And when everything's good, you tend to be a little positive.
On this particular day, Adam was deciding what his last name should be. And when he had finally decided on Adam Sexy, God came up to him.

"Hello Adam", said God.
"Hi God! I'm Adam Sexy now." said Adam.
"Well of course you are, I've created you in my own image." said God. "Now listen, I gotta talk to you about some stuff. I'm going to make a woman for you, out of this rock, and this piece of cake."
"Well why don't you use one of my ribs?" said Adam, happily as ever.

"You rib? That's messed up" said God, creating a pinstriped suit and putting it in his plane.

"Naah naah, I got too many ribs anyway. I insist." said Adam adjusting his groin-leaf.

"If you insist", said God. "She'll take six to eight weeks to reach, I'll have someone come by later to pick up the rib"

Origins Of Pessimism:

Six to eight weeks later. Adam was sitting by the river, with a chunk of apple stuck in his throat.

Eve: Look it's forbidden fruit, it was such a cliché.

Adam Sexy: You know I have this strange feeling about things to come.

Eve: (rolls her eyes) Oh here we go.

Adam Sexy: Like...things don't always turn out so well.

Eve: Who said they did?

Adam Sexy: But they always did before.

Eve: (mumble about being stuck with a douche bag) Look, pass that half-empty leaf glass. I have to wash this snakeskin bag I made.

Adam Sexy: Half what?

Eve: Meh. I'm going to get it on my own. Adam. Sexy, apparently.

Adam Sexy: you know this apple thing is getting irritating.

Eve: You should have seen it coming.

Adam Sexy: How was I supposed to know something bad was going to happen? Nothing bad's ever happened before.

Eve: Because something bad always happens. Keep that in mind.

And clearly if you have the capacity to read sentences from left to right, you'd realize that Eve was the first pessimist and she would later turn cynic

(FYI: I'm not christian, but I know all this because Christianity has excellent marketing)

Pessimism and Cynicism:

So Pessimism and Cynicism have numerous advantages because they predict that everything, in a sense will always go wrong. Or that negativity towards a potential happening saves a lot of trouble.
And this comes in handy because pessimists and cynics get to say "I told you so."
A LOT.

To this I will now add, I feel an exhaustive summation of the subject thus far. The one thing you need to always keep in mind at any point in your life, which is...

Deva's law Of non-optimism:
Shit happens.
All the time.

(Consider the rest, a foot note, if you're ever confused)

NOT Pessimism:

Emo: Is short for emotional. That's right, emotional. Emo's are full of angst, and pain, and have terribly depressing outlooks on life. But be warned that this is not pessimism.
Pessimism is the intellectual understanding of the historic background to why the outcome of something is going to suck.
And no pessimist is going to get EMOTIONAL ABOUT IT.
If anything Emo, is a very very distant cousin of pessimism, who refuses to come out of the closet.

If you've read this leave a comment. But my cynicism sees very few comments in the future. Just leave some kind of sign.

Do something, be creative.

Cockroaches

People don't like cockroaches.

I hate cockroaches. But I don't like people much either. I don't know where I'm going with this, but I refuse to let it go.

Anyway, for those of you who have done / keep company of, people who love marijuana, take a couple of seconds, say "cockroach" out loud and see what that means. Don't feel shy to drop a comment when you do!

Them cockroaches

Cockroaches have an undeniable air of mystery around them. They come and leave unnoticed, are about only in the dead of the night, and have that glossy coat no matter how crappy their living conditions are, and they can survive nuclear holocausts.

These happen to be qualities that I require, with my future currently pointing to I don’t know what. So I took it upon myself to emulate cockroaches and their habits, but what I found was startling.

Cockroaches are fuckers

In order to emulate the habits of a person, said some guy once, you must closely observe their behavior and gather information.

Clearly, some guy did not mess around. I have also heard rave reviews about things that some guy said from some people, so I decided to follow his advice.

I set about doing this in a systematic and meticulous (that’s S&M, Ha!) manner. I followed cockroaches wherever they went, taking careful notes wearing thick glasses and tight pants. If you think that wasn’t hard then take a second to think about how stupid you are. All I remember about cockroaches from school was that:

1. Cockroaches are known to be notoriously antisocial

2. Biology students are obsessed with their thigh muscles

3. Something about the plague

Having gotten these facts cleared by consistent public humiliation (the cockroach public, mind you, I would've dealt out some ass-kicking with regular people), I actually managed to fit in a little bit. What struck me the most, is that they're very touchy about the fact that they scare women.

I admit, it was a low moment for me, but I managed to gain their trust. And finally I made a cockroach friend. His name is Satyendra.

Apart from having an extremely convenient name, Satyendra the cockroach is a very chilled out insect. He slicks his antennae back over his head, keeps his wings jacked up like spoilers while riding his old bullet 500, cigarette in hand, and sports a look that tells the world to go fuck themselves.

Satyendra was a little hesitant in making my acquaintance because he had seen me smile at him shyly across a crowded room a few times. I got the feeling, suddenly, that it creeped him out.

"It creeps me out." he came and told me.

"I love you", I replied.

Over coffee and breadcrumbs one day, after Satyendra thanked me for the roses and chocolates, I started asking him about the origin of cockroaches and why most of them are such fuckers.

He nodded knowingly.

"Because we are" he said, after a pause.

"That’s hardly an origin, Satya" I replied.

"Don't call me Satya. And no, I was answering the second half of your question." said Satya.

"Also don't call me Satya when you're quoting me somewhere”, he added.

"Sheesh, I won’t."

(But I did! Ha! Luckily, cockroaches cannot read)

"So tell me about this origin of cockroaches, and don't give me any crap about evolving from bacteria or something, which is just rubbish."

Satya sighed, "Fine, but I'm warning you, this will be hard to digest"

"As long as it’s edible, I'm game", I said

"Alright, fine. But I must urge you to keep what I tell you absolutely secret." said Satya, his voice reducing to a whisper.

"My lips are sealed, Satya"

"How about we stick to Satyendra?"

"Right. Sorry."

Origin of cockroaches

There was once a Spartan, named Trycariocus, who was well respected because he stared in the face of death and didn't run away screaming like a girl. He screamed like a man. This was a loud modulating sound that I suppose you'd associate with Tarzan swinging from a tree, but it was, however, the first war cry. 

Somehow over the years the war cry changed from screaming while running away, to screaming while running toward. Still, he deserves publicity.

Trycariocus had received much honor for his doings over the years, like that time where he broke a guy in half, and the other time this cat got stuck in a tree, so he broke a guy in half. And that time when it was raining, and he broke a guy in half.

The honor really started getting to him after sometime. He needed some honor every half an hour. He couldn't go on the bus without getting some honor, he even sold his shield to some Persians for some honor, then killed them and took it back. Thankfully, he realized later that he was addicted, and these days he was just dishing out honor.

Trycariocus was 6 feet tall, 5 feet long and 8 feet deep. He was also a man who thought of the future, and the past. Well, and sometimes the present.

He thought a lot, being the key point.

One hot muscular day in Sparta, he was sitting and scribbling in his diary about the future and the evolution of the Spartans. It surprised me to hear he knew about evolution, when everyone else at the time thought that trees had given birth to their grandparents. In fact, his last name was Darwin. Okay I'm lying. But his middle name was Charles, and I think that’s coincidence enough.

The Spartans are awesome, He wrote, even some guy thinks so, and that’s saying a lot.

I feel that unless some drastic change takes place the Spartans shall not be able to survive much longer in this world. There’s this plague thing that’s all the rage and it kills people too. Albeit, much slower than we do. I had some fellow Spartans try to beat the plague out of a man, but it did not work. Simply beating the fuck out of the plague does not make it go away.

While our majestic muscles instill fear in the hearts of our adversaries, I can't help but feel that the shininess of our shields has something to do with it. In the future, I feel this valuable asset must not be neglected.

Also, as a Spartan, we're lucky with ladies. Oh yeah. you know, you know. This, I feel shall stay with us through the years.

It was then that Trycariocus was interrupted rudely by Rajendra, his son. Rajendra is a recurring name in history, and I shouldn't have to mention this, because I'm not making this up. History has limited creativity when it comes to names.

"Dad!" said Rajendra, hanging his shield on the shield stand. (An invention that disappeared through the ages)

"Hello, β"

"Just because we're Greek, you don't have to call me β"

"Fine, beta" said Trycariocus, making a face. "What do you want?"

"I just need some honor dad, I have a date." said Rajendra carelessly flexing his calves.

"You don't need honor for a date, Rajendra, you have muscles for that"

"This is Sparta, dad. Everyone has muscles, the only one getting all the chicks is that honorable fat guy" said Rajendra, shrugging.

"What did you say?" asked Trycariocus, getting up, outrage clearly lined in his voice.

"I said this is Sparta, dad. Every-" began Rajendra.

"What did I tell you about saying that?" said Trycariocus, all his veins popping with fury.

"Oh, dad Its-"

"IT HAS TO BE IN CAPSLOCK!" roared Trycariocus.

"THIS-IS-SPARTAAAA!!!, dad. Every-" yelled Rajendra.

"-That’s enough son. Don't you EVER forget the CAPSLOCK." said Trycariocus, calming down and returning to his desk.

Rajendra rolled his eyes. "Yeah, whatever, listen..er.. about that honor?"

"Look, β, I can't keeping giving you honor all the time. I just gave you some goddamn honor yesterday. What, do you think I'm made of honor?"

"No, but that sounds like a great title for a movie."

"What’s a movie?" asked Trycs (Trycariocus, his name is too long)

"You know what", said Rajendra, "this is a completely useless conversation."

"You're a completely useless conversation." said Trycs, and immediately realized that he'd already given away far too much honor.

"Like why would someone bother to remember this stupid conversation that we had, possibly even type it out?" asked Rajendra, ever the dumb prophet.

"Well it provides light comic relief, in a sense, so I might force someone to remember it, let’s see. Now get lost, I have to get back to my diary." said Trycs, very seriously.

Rajendra sniggered and made a remark about the insanity that was exhibited by everyone who wrote in a diary. He was subsequently hit over the head with a mallet. He never made much sense after that, he was always going on about the process of making things and wanted to make things by outlining the phases involved in the least technical way possible, and went around imposing this on the Greek schools of learning. But more on that later.

"Yeah so, Trycariocus' prophecy came true" said Satyendra, his voice still a whisper.

"Oh I forgot you were narrating this. Sorry. How did his prophecy come true?"

"Cockroaches are descendants of Spartans. We descended from the Spartans MAN! We have glossy shield/wings, and have killer thighs. Plus we're clever little things" said Satya, puffing out his thorax.

"Yeah, but Trycariocus said you wouldn't scare women. You scare the fuck out of women." I said, pointing out a flaw in his story.

"HEY! OKAY, that’s just… fuck you man. I'm leaving" said Satya, storming off.

Satya doesn't return my calls anymore.

See, I told you they were touchy about the women thing.

The myth, the PR and the cake

I ate the cake. But I’ll tell you about the myth and the PR.

The myth

Cockroaches are apparently able to survive nuclear holocausts, like I said before. As cool as this sounds, after I had been so disillusioned about the life and habits of cockroaches, I decided to investigate.

I decided to phase this task separately. Since I don't own a nuclear bomb (well I'm not spoilt, you know) I decided to list out close alternatives. I shortlisted two possibilities

1. Gas Stoves

2. Microwaves

Over various experiments conducted by myself, it was evident that

1. Cockroaches get fucking burnt by gas stoves

2. Cockroaches blow up in microwave ovens

3. Cockroaches get squished by shoes

This is disturbing, as I would generally make the assumption that

Nuclear Bombs > Microwave Ovens > Gas Stoves > My Shoe

This leads me to come to the conclusion that cockroaches cannot survive nuclear holocausts. I urge you to try your own experiments. But why does everyone think they can, well that's because of

The PR

PR = Public Relations, Pink Rabbits, Prince Richard, Puerto Rico. Stuff like that. But the one I'm talking about here is Public Relations.

Public Relations broadly refers to just go to Wikipedia and look it up.

Now that you've done that, for reasons that are beyond me, someone has been doing some great PR work for cockroaches. I have reason to suspect that this is, in fact, some guy! But I hope it isn't him. Because some guy is awesome, and cockroaches are weak, man. They're weak. 

You might have already deduced that by now, but it brings me very neatly to my next subject of discussion.

Unfortunately though, I have more to say than I realized at the starting of this post, and my keyboard can take only so much at once. The rest will be published in 'The return of cockroaches’.

So I shall leave you now, for a while. Plus there is a second part to this post, so there's all this suspense in the air.