Sometimes it’s pretty hard to be an optimist in this world, but then, do we have an alternative?
Things may get worse and they may do so consistently, but that does not take away our responsibility to know what the right direction would be, neither does it take away our ability to work towards that goal of making things better, however elusive it may be.
In that regard, one of humanity’s greatest characteristics, maybe the one that put us in control of our own fates in a way that no other species has ever controlled theirs, is working against us. I mean the ability to see small differences by putting everything in relation to where we are and what our current situation is.
We are extremely good at recognizing small changes. We all know how images may look extremely lively to our eyes and how dull they may be when printed or displayed on a screen, just as they came out of a camera. Fact is, this is not at all restricted to photography, this happens everywhere.
This automatic bias, this focus on deviation from the short-term average greatly helps us living our lives in response to the challenges of the world, but it may also fool us and throw us in despair.
In those moments it is a good idea to lean back and think about the big picture. Just doing so normally gets you back in an optimistic mood. After all, even if things got worse, there is nothing that automatically keeps them from getting better. Every moment is new, the past is past, every present means a new roll of the dice.
The Song of the Day is “Burning With Optimism’s Flames” from the 1980 XTC album “Black Sea”. Hear it on YouTube.