4 ms·

Acknowledge the sadness, but fight the depression. Act. We can only do our best.

• pipo234 3y ago
  Indeed. I think I recently heard Cory Doctorow phrase it like this: Both pessimists and optimists are essentially fatalists. Ie.: at the core it's more important to believe you can make a change, than to "know" what "will" happen.
  • dredmorbius 3y ago
    That's Doctorow's prescription of hope rather than "optimism" or "pessimism". Hope reserves agency. Optimism and pessimism both presume an outcome regardless of action, and absolve responsibility.
    • DicIfTEx 3y ago
      As a counterpoint, Derrick Jensen's “Beyond Hope”: https://orionmagazine.org/article/beyond-hope/ https://orionmagazine.org/article/beyond-hope/
      • dredmorbius 3y ago
        That reminds me of Ashleigh Brilliant's aphorism: "I feel much better now that I've given up hope". <https://www.ashleighbrilliant.com/book4.html https://www.ashleighbrilliant.com/book4.html> That's more about hope as expectation than hope as possibility, I think. And that's certainly Jensen's vibe. Thanks for the reference.