Pessimism!
Posted by: u5227470736789439 on 16 May 2006
Dear Friends,
Some I know think I am a pessimist, but I prefer to think of myself as a realist.
In fact I have now shown, in spite of my apparent pessimism, that I was wildly unrealistic, and far too optimistic.
The only thing I never over-estimated was the humain qualities of good individual people. I have some lovely friends, and the mutual expression of affection would not be inaccurately be described as love, but everything else in the world is going downhill fast, and I wonder how much more pessimistic about it all I can be till the thought becomes impossible.
I always said a realist is less likely to be dissappointed. How wrong I have proved myself to be. Funnily some of my optimistic cohorts have caught life far worse.
The above is all true for me, so dear Friends, would anyone like to comment? [Just in case any of you are wondering if I am a tad depressed? No not in the least. I am begining to see a grim humour in it all]!
All the best from Fredrik
Some I know think I am a pessimist, but I prefer to think of myself as a realist.
In fact I have now shown, in spite of my apparent pessimism, that I was wildly unrealistic, and far too optimistic.
The only thing I never over-estimated was the humain qualities of good individual people. I have some lovely friends, and the mutual expression of affection would not be inaccurately be described as love, but everything else in the world is going downhill fast, and I wonder how much more pessimistic about it all I can be till the thought becomes impossible.
I always said a realist is less likely to be dissappointed. How wrong I have proved myself to be. Funnily some of my optimistic cohorts have caught life far worse.
The above is all true for me, so dear Friends, would anyone like to comment? [Just in case any of you are wondering if I am a tad depressed? No not in the least. I am begining to see a grim humour in it all]!
All the best from Fredrik
Posted on: 16 May 2006 by Guido Fawkes
Dear Fredrik
One of my favourite poems is Ben King's The Pessimist which goes
Nothing to do but work,
Nothing to eat but food,
Nothing to wear but clothes
To keep one from going nude.
Nothing to breathe but air
Quick as a flash 'tis gone;
Nowhere to fall but off,
Nowhere to stand but on.
Nothing to comb but hair,
Nowhere to sleep but in bed,
Nothing to weep but tears,
Nothing to bury but dead.
Nothing to sing but songs,
Ah, well, alas! alack!
Nowhere to go but out,
Nowhere to come but back.
Nothing to see but sights,
Nothing to quench but thirst,
Nothing to have but what we've got;
Thus thro' life we are cursed.
Nothing to strike but a gait;
Everything moves that goes.
Nothing at all but common sense
Can ever withstand all these woes.
I think I'm reasonably optimistic, but I still look back through my rosy coloured specs and think it all used be so much better in my youth. I remember being told at school that we would have endless supplies of energy from nuclear power stations, robots would do the work and my biggest concern would be what to do with all the leisure time.
And I still don't understand how I ended up in the job that I'm in: staring at computer all day designing computer systems for others to stare at. I wanted to be a lighthouse keeper, but the career's officer said it was a silly aspiration.
All the best, Rotf
One of my favourite poems is Ben King's The Pessimist which goes
Nothing to do but work,
Nothing to eat but food,
Nothing to wear but clothes
To keep one from going nude.
Nothing to breathe but air
Quick as a flash 'tis gone;
Nowhere to fall but off,
Nowhere to stand but on.
Nothing to comb but hair,
Nowhere to sleep but in bed,
Nothing to weep but tears,
Nothing to bury but dead.
Nothing to sing but songs,
Ah, well, alas! alack!
Nowhere to go but out,
Nowhere to come but back.
Nothing to see but sights,
Nothing to quench but thirst,
Nothing to have but what we've got;
Thus thro' life we are cursed.
Nothing to strike but a gait;
Everything moves that goes.
Nothing at all but common sense
Can ever withstand all these woes.
I think I'm reasonably optimistic, but I still look back through my rosy coloured specs and think it all used be so much better in my youth. I remember being told at school that we would have endless supplies of energy from nuclear power stations, robots would do the work and my biggest concern would be what to do with all the leisure time.
And I still don't understand how I ended up in the job that I'm in: staring at computer all day designing computer systems for others to stare at. I wanted to be a lighthouse keeper, but the career's officer said it was a silly aspiration.
All the best, Rotf
Posted on: 16 May 2006 by Jim Lawson
Hi Fredrik
Your experiences would seem to have lived up to your expectations. An optimist would see this as a good thing. Are you disappointed?
"Don't ever become a pessimist, Ira; a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun--and neither can stop the march of events." (Robert A. Heinlein, "Time Enough For Love")
Cheers
Jim
Your experiences would seem to have lived up to your expectations. An optimist would see this as a good thing. Are you disappointed?
"Don't ever become a pessimist, Ira; a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun--and neither can stop the march of events." (Robert A. Heinlein, "Time Enough For Love")
Cheers
Jim
Posted on: 16 May 2006 by u5227470736789439
Dear Jim
Areas of satisfaction and happiness: The integrity of friends. Not many friends but all worth there weight in gold.
Area of disappointement: Everything else of signifcance.
Areas that may have improved by don't change my degree of happiness or disappointment: Quality of gramophone replay!
So does that make me a real pessimist or a realist or an optimist? I do find that though friends occasionally do irritating things, when it comes to the crunch mine have always been the tops. Apart from the gramophone everything else, yes literally everything else, is going down hill fast, including a very cynical attitude to the money we work to earn in the work place...
Anyone agree? All the best from Fredrik
Areas of satisfaction and happiness: The integrity of friends. Not many friends but all worth there weight in gold.
Area of disappointement: Everything else of signifcance.
Areas that may have improved by don't change my degree of happiness or disappointment: Quality of gramophone replay!
So does that make me a real pessimist or a realist or an optimist? I do find that though friends occasionally do irritating things, when it comes to the crunch mine have always been the tops. Apart from the gramophone everything else, yes literally everything else, is going down hill fast, including a very cynical attitude to the money we work to earn in the work place...
Anyone agree? All the best from Fredrik
Posted on: 16 May 2006 by Jim Lawson
Fredrik
"literally everything else, is going down hill fast"
That is your perspective and you are entitled to it. I could argue that I too am a realist and that I see a bright future for mankind as he ( and she) strive to make the earth an even better place to live than it is now.
Friends, indeed, might be the most important resource that any of us have.
Jim
"literally everything else, is going down hill fast"
That is your perspective and you are entitled to it. I could argue that I too am a realist and that I see a bright future for mankind as he ( and she) strive to make the earth an even better place to live than it is now.
Friends, indeed, might be the most important resource that any of us have.
Jim
Posted on: 16 May 2006 by u5227470736789439
Dear Jim,
On the largest human level I see no future at all beyond another three generations perhaps, unless we start to reduce the level of the human population, but that is another point.
How are these extra heads suppose to eat and drink, especially when energy seems to be getting more expensive at something approaching an exponential rate?
Fredrik
On the largest human level I see no future at all beyond another three generations perhaps, unless we start to reduce the level of the human population, but that is another point.
How are these extra heads suppose to eat and drink, especially when energy seems to be getting more expensive at something approaching an exponential rate?
Fredrik
Posted on: 16 May 2006 by Beano
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.
Oscar Wilde
[Edit] A pessimist is someone who if given two choices, takes both.
Beano
Oscar Wilde
[Edit] A pessimist is someone who if given two choices, takes both.
Beano
Posted on: 16 May 2006 by Marcopolovitch
Well my friends are gone
And my hair is grey.
I ache in the places
Where I used to play ....
Leonard Cohen anyone?
And my hair is grey.
I ache in the places
Where I used to play ....
Leonard Cohen anyone?
Posted on: 16 May 2006 by erik scothron
A pessimist is one who has been intimately acquainted with an optimist - Elbert Hubbard.
Posted on: 16 May 2006 by erik scothron
quote:Originally posted by Marcopolovitch:
Well my friends are gone
And my hair is grey.
I ache in the places
Where I used to play ....
Leonard Cohen anyone?
Yes, and who was it who said 'you know when you are getting old when it takes you all night to do what you used to do all night!'
Posted on: 16 May 2006 by u5227470736789439
quote:Originally posted by Beano:
A pessimist is someone who if given two choices, takes both.
Beano
What about the paralisis that makes one unable to take either?
That's me sometimes, and hindsight usually shows that one's tendency to have chosen one would have been wrong even then! Soemtimes I think fate makes better decsions for us than we can ourselves.
I find that fate in all its mystery arranged for me to be in the right place at the right time to meet the friends I have, and that is good enough to make battling on worth the effort. But everything else is like shoving an unwilling elephant up a stair case!
Fredrik
Posted on: 16 May 2006 by Jim Lawson
Love the Leonard Cohen! God, I forgot that line!
Fredrik
email me at jww@iname.com
Cheers
Jim
Fredrik
email me at jww@iname.com
Cheers
Jim
Posted on: 16 May 2006 by Jim Lawson
At your leisure, of course 
Posted on: 17 May 2006 by Earwicker
You'd have to be pretty stupid to take a positive view of life. It usually starts under grim auspices: you'd like to think that, given the seriousness of the human condition, considerable regulation and procedure would be in place to control human fecundity, to limit the mass of miserable, superfluous life that is society. But no. No one is in any way discouraged from breeding and the fecundity of people who ought to be a dead-end on the phylogenetic tree is bloody astonishing; most of us are condemned to life for no better reason than a couple of idiot bastard kids got the springtimes. We exist because our parents were selfish, clumsy or stupid.
Life's probably OK if you're a concert pianist or a writer or an F1 racing driver, but in most cases it is just a detestable nonesense, that is completely and utterly pointless and shorn of all redemption. There is nothing to be positive about, no hope, and no reason.
DON'T BREED!
EW
Life's probably OK if you're a concert pianist or a writer or an F1 racing driver, but in most cases it is just a detestable nonesense, that is completely and utterly pointless and shorn of all redemption. There is nothing to be positive about, no hope, and no reason.
DON'T BREED!
EW
Posted on: 17 May 2006 by Beano
quote:Originally posted by Earwicker:
You'd have to be pretty stupid to take a positive view of life. It usually starts under grim auspices: you'd like to think that, given the seriousness of the human condition, considerable regulation and procedure would be in place to control human fecundity, to limit the mass of miserable, superfluous life that is society. But no. No one is in any way discouraged from breeding and the fecundity of people who ought to be a dead-end on the phylogenetic tree is bloody astonishing; most of us are condemned to life for no better reason than a couple of idiot bastard kids got the springtimes. We exist because our parents were selfish, clumsy or stupid.
Life's probably OK if you're a concert pianist or a writer or an F1 racing driver, but in most cases it is just a detestable nonesense, that is completely and utterly pointless and shorn of all redemption. There is nothing to be positive about, no hope, and no reason.
DON'T BREED!
EW
Earwicker,
Would you say that life is a sexually transmitted disease?
Posted on: 17 May 2006 by JoeH
Life is far too important to be taken seriously.
Posted on: 17 May 2006 by Basil
Posted on: 17 May 2006 by Earwicker
quote:Originally posted by Basil:
I think you may need it.
No, I can't abide all that bogus good will and kitsch solicitude. Like all people who spend their lives harassing the invisible man in the sky, the bottom line is they think life's worth living; I don't.
EW
Posted on: 17 May 2006 by JonR
Basil,
This is where I fee you've not quite grasped Earwicker's problem.
It's not that he wants to "end it", as it were - he just feels he never should have "been here" in the first place!
Cheers (or maybe not so many
),
Jon
This is where I fee you've not quite grasped Earwicker's problem.
It's not that he wants to "end it", as it were - he just feels he never should have "been here" in the first place!
Cheers (or maybe not so many
),Jon
Posted on: 17 May 2006 by Basil
It's all right Jon; it wasn't a serious suggestion. I get the distinct impression Earwickers just posting for effect.
Posted on: 17 May 2006 by Marcopolovitch
Life seems so rosy in the cradle,
But I'll be a friend I'll tell you what's in store
There's nothing at the end of the rainbow.
There's nothing to grow up for anymore ...
Richard Thompson anyone?
(Allegedly written for his own child!)
But I'll be a friend I'll tell you what's in store
There's nothing at the end of the rainbow.
There's nothing to grow up for anymore ...
Richard Thompson anyone?
(Allegedly written for his own child!)
Posted on: 17 May 2006 by Guido Fawkes
quote:Originally posted by Marcopolovitch:
Life seems so rosy in the cradle,
But I'll be a friend I'll tell you what's in store
There's nothing at the end of the rainbow.
There's nothing to grow up for anymore ...
Richard Thompson anyone?
(Allegedly written for his own child!)
Yes it was according to Linda Thompson in a recent radio programme about RT.
Wonderful track from the superb I want to see the bright lights tonight elpee.
Posted on: 17 May 2006 by Earwicker
quote:Originally posted by Basil:
I get the distinct impression Earwickers just posting for effect.
No, I genuinely think life isn't worth living, in most cases. It's OK if you're Alfred Brendel I suppose, but for most people it's just unpleasant and completely pointless. Most of us exist because a couple of stupid bloody kids couldn't control themselves, and the resulting lives we are thereby condemned to live are shite.
The whole thing is an absurdity. I can't believe no one's ever made a serious attempt massively to downsize the world's population. There are too many people, too much human packing material, to the extent that the amount of pollution they generate now threatens the world climate. Society is more than adequately padded out.
EW
Posted on: 17 May 2006 by erik scothron
quote:Originally posted by Earwicker:
[QUOTE]
I can't believe no one's ever made a serious attempt massively to downsize the world's population.
EW
Hitler, Stalin, Ghengis Khan, Mao,.............
Posted on: 17 May 2006 by Earwicker
quote:Originally posted by erik scothron:
Hitler, Stalin, Ghengis Khan, Mao,.............
No, they tried to annihilate specific populations, I'm talking about a global drive to reduce the size of the human population. The bottom line is there're too many people.
EW
Posted on: 17 May 2006 by Guido Fawkes
I think Im sophisticated cos Im living my life like a good homosapien
But all around me everybodys multiplying till theyre walking round like flies man
So Im no better than the animals sitting in their cages in the zoo man
cos compared to the flowers and the birds and the trees, I am an ape man
I think Im so educated and Im so civilized cos Im a strict vegetarian
But with the over-population and inflation and starvation and the crazy politicians
I dont feel safe in this world no more, I dont want to die in a nuclear war
I want to sail away to a distant shore and make like an ape man
But all around me everybodys multiplying till theyre walking round like flies man
So Im no better than the animals sitting in their cages in the zoo man
cos compared to the flowers and the birds and the trees, I am an ape man
I think Im so educated and Im so civilized cos Im a strict vegetarian
But with the over-population and inflation and starvation and the crazy politicians
I dont feel safe in this world no more, I dont want to die in a nuclear war
I want to sail away to a distant shore and make like an ape man