Optimism

A friend at work gave me this sketchbook she'd hand made using tracing paper instead of regular paper. It has 48 pages, and I have this idea of how to fill that many pages with a coherant illustrated story.

I don't wish to give too much away but in essence it will progress from page 1 to 48 going from my shallow superficial facade into my depths and what they are and how I try to represent them visual. Like a metaphysical anatomical guide for an aspiring surgeon of the subconscious. I probably gave too much away.

Anyway of necessity I am going to have to include those aspects I don't like about myself. My negatives. I am as prone to engaging in irrational behaviour as probably everyone, and by everyone I mean 'the norm' probably not say substance abusers or peeps with actual personality disorders. The substance I do abuse is food, my diet is aweful and I probably should arrest the behavior that has me consuming my own death.

That is a negative I possess that I could get rid of and not really bat an eyelid. Sure maybe once a year I will be drawn to Sydney Roads KFC for the artistic installation it's bad service and worse food is, but I can probably live quite happily without junkfood in my regular diet.

There are other negatives though I find curious as to why I keep them, I mean I keep them suprressed, I don't act on them (any more) and in accordance with the two-dogs proverb I learned from a Daredevil comic 'There are two dogs fighting in each of us, one that hates and one that loves. Do you know which one wins the fight? The one you feed the most.' my 'bad' nature I haven't fed for years. Yet I can't bring myself to kill it, nor am I sure I can. Maybe controlling our worst behaviour is the best we can do short of a lobotomy.

But I'm in a strange looping loopness of negativity. One part of my negative nature is that I can be quite ruthless, and I have been kind of ruthless in removing negative influences in my life. And by 'remove' I mean 'not spend time with' but I'm not sure if fighting negative with negative is the right way to go.

Some clarification, by negative it is based purely on how somebody makes me feel, I don't mind if people are arseholes to me (it is literally part of my job) and I subscribe to the view of conflicting emotional states, that the most consistent state wins out. At work when I call somebody who is pissed off, I am more or less constantly in a positive frame of mind, and I find that people come up to my positive state almost 99% more often than I sink down to theirs.

The qualities I'm talking about are people that are infectiously pessimistic, selfish, angry, boring, foolish, distrustful etc. it is not just that they are in a bad mood or act annoyed when I annoy them, it is integral to their world view.

I am optimistic when it comes to people including myself. Optimism lends itself to dissappointment sure, but what of it? Finding reasons to dislike somebody is the easiest thing in the world. I am not naive enough to think that people have any difficulty finding reasons to dislike me. What is not much harder though and infinitely more rewarding is finding reasons to like and love people.

Miki taught me this, and is truly master of it. Within 10 seconds of meeting Miki you are gaurunteed to recieve some massive compliment and find yourself feeling warm and fuzzy inside. I remember her meeting my former housemate Sabine and after the usual formal introduction 'Miki, Sabine, Sabine, Miki' she turned to me and said 'Wow! you are SO lucky to have her.' Such exuberance I am unlikely to be able to pull off and sound genuine like Miki did. And certainly Miki is capable of having negative opinions of people, however she is never and I mean NEVER particularly invested in them and these are deviations in her nature that always trues towards her entrenched habit of finding reasons to like people.

And getting entranced by sentimentality is also a trap, Miki has shortcomings (that like everyone else are easy to spot) just as I do. But what I admire about her is that she also possessed a tough, ruthless core. I am starting to suspect this is the secret.

What I mean is, if you take a pessimistic view of people, 1. it's easy. 2. you expectations will almost certainly be fulfilled. Reliable people are rare, but that doesn't mean some slim minority is worthy of your optimism, people let me down, even people that I love. But what of it, I'm not going to deny them the chance to come through for me, and when people do let me down...

it's no big deal. They will have their reasons, and fundamentally - I am optimistic enough about myself to know I will survive and thrive despite let downs. That's the secret, true strength isn't erecting an impenetrable barrier of defence against harm in life, it is being open to attack and just not caring. These are the people who cannot be hurt, those who cling to the defence of pessimism I have generally found to be much better at hurting themselves than almost anybody* else could be.

*the exception of course being dictators, tyrants and sociopaths.