"I'm not a pessimist! I'm a realist!" Yeah, right. No. I'm a pessimist. I am more likely to see defeat and failure than situations warrant. In doing image searches for this post, I'm thinking that pessimists are definitely a minority. Which makes sense, since the human race would have died-out long ago if everybody was like me.
Probably related, I also have a fair degree of self-hatred. (I'm also a narcissist, but those things don't necessarily cancel each other out. Especially since my self-hatred is not all encompassing.)
Why am I writing this?
Because I think that it might go some way to explaining the difference between myself and other bloggers/political progressives/activists. And this explanation is, I think, important for larger reasons.
First of all, if everyone listened to me, or thought like me, Jeremy Corbyn would have given up and retired long ago. There'd be no peace movement whatsoever. There'd be no people spreading the news about climate change. There'd be nothing.
All you people continuing to basically ineffectually bang your heads against walls would have given up and there'd be nothing. So kudos to you all.
But here's the thing: You're so ineffectual because you blindly believe it's just all going to work out somehow. "The Democratic/Liberal Party will ONE DAY stop listening to corporate interests and put the people first! They just will!" "The NDP will ONE DAY win power and everything will go swimmingly for us!" "If we keep 'spreading the word' about anthropocentric climate change, ONE DAY our leaders will abandon the fossil-fuels industry and we will totally re-align our economic systems, and it will all work out." "If we keep having bigger and bigger rallies, ONE DAY the power imbalances in our society will reverse themselves and utopia will have arrived."
Just as there really isn't objective justification for my pessimism, there is no justification for your own blind optimism. My negative attitude isn't grounded in the facts, and neither is your positive one. We're, each of us, deluded.
That means that instead of disregarding me, you should instead realize that there's cause for concern. That maybe, while I'm a defeatist, that there are things that exist, factors that need to be accounted for, upon which my pessimism is based and which you, in your optimism, are ignoring.
Finally, with regards to my self-hatred; I think it has given me the ability to abandon unproductive beliefs and opinions. I know that I've been a complete fucking idiot in the past and it makes me cringe. But here's what you won't often see me doing. Sticking to destroyed opinions and appalling politicians and policies. I am no partisan to anything except what I see as the truth.
It doesn't surprise me when your typical right-wing clod sticks by someone like Rob Ford or stephen harper. You know; people who admired Ford's "no-nonsense," "tough on crime" social views, but forgave him for routinely smoking crack with gangsters during his drunken stupors. Or who loved harper because he enthusiastically kept us in wars and they all "supported the troops" by insisting that we keep them wherever it was they were fighting and believed in whatever it was they were supposed to be doing. But when harper betrayed and abused "the troops" when they became injured, they just let it pass in silence.
But lefties and liberals, who I generally find to be, on average, more enlightened and intelligent people, do the same thing, all the intelligence or progressive credentials and supposed empathy can't make them accept that Hillary Clinton is a mass-murderer. Barack Obama is a cynical corporate shill. (And a mass-murderer.) Or that Justin Trudeau is a brazen hypocrite. When this is pointed out to you, you go silent and wait for the uncomfortable moment to pass. When the failure of your one-day protest rallies and marches is pointed out to you, you blather some inanity or look away until I'm gone.
Because you love yourselves more than I do. You believe in your opinions with greater strength because they're YOUR opinions and you are beautiful.
I was going to type more but my right pinky hurts.
4 comments:
Our societies are ones of dogmatism and idealism instead of reality.
It's that simple.
Tar,
That about sums it up. Very little respect for reality.
Paranormal Activity: What must i do? Today, my family and I remaining each morning and didn't come back until late night.
Whenever we arrived we observed our deadbolt was
locked, but I was the last one out and I certainly didn't lock it.
The only method to lock it is with a key or from the inside, but
our back door was locked and there were zero signs... show more
Correction: You do not remember anyone locking the entranceway, and your mom is
definitely 99.9% sure she left her clothing on the bed.
There's a big difference between what folks keep in mind and what actually happened.
Seem it up unless you trust me. You found a shirt that
wasn't where it had been said to be and a door that was locked
you don't recall locking. That doesn't count
as paranormal, not in virtually any book. That tale wouldn't even curiosity those clowns from 'reality' Television,
and they'll believe anything from a person with no queries asked.
You understand the guys After all: They operate around in a van (but they're not Scooby
Doo), pay attention to wild stories and say "let's bring in the team to check it out".
They setup camp, await sunset, and established all their digital cameras on green-o-vision setting (even though
colour low-light technology provides been available for decades).
They gradually walk around and state "do you hear that, what was that", then they try to film it by wildly swinging the camera around and hyperventilating.
Those clowns. And even they wouldn't come to your dwelling.
Perspicacious!
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