Optimism

by Rick Ivy, April 25, 2003

Capt. Nemo,

Reviewing our recent correspondence, I found a note concerning the amount of cynicism running rampant in this new millenium. Your comment that reading the thoughts of Marcus Aurelias, the "philosopher/king", might provide an antidote to cynicism is interesting and useful. Searching through the electronic shelves of the Wellsian brainchild, I've been pondering the ins and outs of humanity's transformations into civilizations, and then empires. Could it be vice versa?

Those above the level of an ostrich with it's head buried in sand, will be aware that changes aren't always painless, and occasionally don't automatically represent an altogether pretty picture. Dwelling, though, on only the ugly aspects of development, and disregarding the positives, is still only part of the picture. Cynicism breeds it's own reward in that way.

The 1930's were a particularly illustrious period of explosion, one of the results being Picasso's painting called "Guernica", currently behind a blue screen lest it enflame the children. (It is ugly, but that was Picasso's point. The event was ugly, how could a painting of it be, in any way, less so and remain honest to the facts?) That decade brackets huge steps taken into elements of this modern era. As Hitler spread fear and systematic murder, Churchill and F.D.R. worked tirelessly for an altogether different worldview, with much more humane motives and objectives.

To place one's trust in the belief that man can reason his way out of his predicaments is perhaps the only first step that must be continually taken when adversity, a condition that we know is fundamental in the rules of the game, intrudes. A positive self-nurturing feedback loop for mankind needs to be followed. Your improved "3-step program" is a strong step in that direction. The maxim "as within, so with out" may prove beneficial in examining this truth.

If confusion or wrong-headedness is intended, a potent beginning might be accomplished by the spreading of untruth. Toward that deliberate, diabolical broadcasting of falsehood, a bottling up of proper facts and their sources would further the project. Once done, a veritable seamless bucket, more effective than the proverbial basket with holes, will have been dropped over the source of light, extinguishing the flame of truth. Simple? Hardly. The spark remains.

Cynicism seems to include a lingering in morbidity. It is a viewpoint below the level of the skeptic. While skepticism may provide a platform for the vigilance required to accurately survey contingencies, optimism adds a necessary fuel for progress to the realist. As life's journey begins at hearth and home, which hopefully offers the welcome of tranquility and bliss, one ventures out across the threshold and passes into the uncharted sea of struggle. Riding waves, one encounters new conditions, has experiences, and proceeds to develop a worldview. One arrives at a new place. Secure in the benefits of harmony and peace, the desire to duplicate those conditions on the next shore will further their effects. If that farther shore is never to be reached because it is to difficult to bring into existence, are we doomed? The cynic seems to think so. One might wonder why home was ever left behind in the first place. The truth may be that we never do leave home. It may be that home leaves us, in that things are always constantly changing. We don't trade stability for instability. The two go hand in hand, through action. Optimism can deliver us unscathed. The various contents of the global library, in its various forms, provide the recordings of previous voyagers, which become the details on the road map into the future. Perhaps the stacks of life's library will never be filled completely, as issues of redundancy and glaring voids begin to be seen. To fully ellucidate a mystery might mean it's end. Our present is already at sea, so to speak. Our future, who knows?

Perhaps a wonderful book that's begging to be written will be titled, "A manual for how to be human". The first chapter might be called: "Nobody likes a bully".

Rick Ivy, April 25, 2003

updated for clarity Dec. 15, 2003