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Deborama goes deeper
Most of this, the nugget, was a Facebook post*:
A friend of mine posted about pessimism and how much we need it in a world of foolish optimists. While also acknowledging that not all have the fortitude or relative privilege to sustain total pessimism. He said if pessimism will break you, go ahead and be optimistic.
I can only remain unbroken by being a fairly even mixture of both.
It’s funny, because people usually interpret such outlook as mercurial, changeable, uncommitted, while I make a big deal of trying to be consistent and committed. I am totally a Scorpio, a dark “fixed” sign, ultrasensitive to betrayal and lies, protectively a little secretive, and loyal almost to a fault.
But I will, in all sincerity, post a long essay about how the human race is pure shit and we might in fact deserve the doom that is surely coming, and the very next post is — oh! three firemen rescued a kitten and found out it was a baby fox! Isn’t that adorable!
What is this craziness? One of my favorite poets, Yeats, wrote — “But fair and foul are next of kin, and fair needs foul…” Lao Tsu says — “Yield and you need not break. Bent you can straighten, … torn you can mend, And as want can reward you, So wealth can bewilder…” Octavia Butler had a character who preached — “Change is the only constant. God is change.”
