Why Am I An Optimist?

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Why I am an optimist?

Wow. I received so many meaningful comments and had several rewarding exchanges based on last week's post The Dignity of Difference. Thank you so much to all that continue to both praise and challenge my thinking. It is very clear, at least inside this community, that we all long for a much more nuanced, decent, and civil dialogue about things that matter.

This week, I am returning to perhaps my favorite posture. Being optimistic. Right now, the world doesn't feel particularly optimistic, does it? And the question is NOT whether there are good reasons for serious concerns (there are many), but, rather, whether or not we believe we can indeed solve them (which I believe we can).

When asked a few years ago what is going on in this world, the historian Yuval Harari so accurately pointed out that there has never been a better day to wake up as a human being than right now. The problem is that it doesn't feel that way. So, why is that? And what is optimism anyway?

Optimism is an attitude. A posture. A lens through which to walk through life. Optimists believe we can do better. Optimists believe that humans are mainly good and that the purpose in life is to put ourselves to good use in pursuit of meaningful endeavors.

I subscribe to the Vaclav Havel-type of optimism and hope. This is to say that neither Hope nor Optimism is a guarantee that things will turn out well. Unfortunately, as we know too well, many times they don't. However, an optimist and a hopeful person believes with all their soul that we will keep trying and that somewhere, somehow there is a better way to do things that makes sense. And the directionality of our future is characterized by progress and improvement. Regardless of the exact and specific outcome in every moment, there is always movement. And personally, that brings me hope.

To paraphrase Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., I would say that an optimist believes that "the arch of the universe is long and it bends towards progress." (King, of course, talked about how the arch of the moral universe is long and bends towards justice).

Gratitude is a close companion of optimism. Whenever I personally feel a bit blue and optimism is eluding me, I think about my sister Erica who was not as lucky as I was in the ovarian lottery of life. It could as well have been me, and not a day goes by when I don't think about how lucky I am. It always helps to put whatever I am dealing with in the proper perspective. The same goes for when I think about our kids, our grandkids, and our incredible network of friends. Including you, of course!

And while the misery of uncertainty in life is real, it sure beats the certainty of misery. Meaning, I'd rather have questions and problems as long as I know I get to take another swing, have another go, and wake up another day.

There is a great news organization, founded by fellow Swede Mathias Sundin, called Warp News. They are committed to fact-based optimism. I find it to be such a worthy and important endeavor. Recently, they published an incredible essay by Professor David Deutsch, the Oxford Physicist who is certainly one of our leading intellectuals around quantum computation, but also in and around the topic of optimism. I have linked to the article below. Here is a teaser:

When one can’t imagine how some evil could be lessened, it is easy to mistake that for an argument that lessening it is impossible. That’s pessimism: the negation of optimism. From that, it is natural to conclude that no good can come of novelty.

That is tragically false; but novel behavior has indeed always been dangerous. In prehistoric times, anyone who experimented with putting objects in the campfire might well achieve nothing, and only ruin the food, or cause an explosion, or fill the shelter with smoke, or even just put the fire out. In subsistence cultures, such events could be life-threatening. Yet that same experimenter might also invent a way of hardening spear tips – or invent metallurgy, or cookery – to the enormous benefit of the family group and of humankind. But they had no way of knowing that.

But pessimism is false. Even the stasis that people thought they could see for themselves, wasn’t real: progress did happen. But it was either too infrequent to be retained in oral history (the only kind they had), or not impressive enough at the time to be noticed.

I recognize that it is in some ways harder to be an optimist. Particularly in recent times when we are surrounded by a deafening sound of cynicism, pessimism, and doubt. And that in and of itself is a reason to work harder to "elevate" our perspectives, recommit to the arch of progress, and help ourselves and then our own communities to find the cracks, the doors, and the paths towards a brighter future.

I found David Deutsch's essay so hopeful and so true. I needed that this week, so thank you to Warp News for sharing. Every time I think deeper and longer, I recommit to my optimistic posture. Pessimism only wins when we lose. That's no way to live.

I will end with one of my favorite passages that have inspired me for decades. It is from Albert Camus's wonderful speech he gave in Uppsala, Sweden in conjunction with receiving the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature.

One may long, as I do, for a gentler flame, a respite, a pause for musing. But perhaps there is no other peace for the artist than what he finds in the heat of combat. ”Every wall is a door.” Emerson correctly said. Let us not look for the door, and the way out, anywhere but in the wall against which we are living. Instead, let us seek the respite where it is - in the very thick of battle. For in my opinion, and this is where I shall close, it is there. Great ideas, it has been said, come into the world as gently as doves. Perhaps, then, if we listen attentively, we shall hear, amid the uproar of empires and nations, a faint flutter of wings, the gentle stirring of life and hope. Some will say that this hope lies in a nation, others, in a man. I believe rather that it is awakened, revived, nourished by millions of solitary individuals whose deeds and works every day negate frontiers and the crudest implications of history. As a result, there shines forth fleetingly the ever-threatened truth that each and every man, on the foundations of his own sufferings and joys, builds for them all.

Albert Camus' "Create Dangerously" Lecture in Uppsala, Sweden 1957Quote Source

That is so beautiful........"perhaps then, if we listen attentively, we shall hear, amid the uproar of empires and nations, a faint flutter of wings, the gentle stirring of life and hope!"

So let us listen attentively. When we look harder for what's good, we will find it. And those gifts and discoveries will ultimately silence the loud voices that right now are standing in the way of real progress.

I am sharing only 2 things this week.

First, the David Deutsch article from Warp Speed is right here. It's about a 13 min read. It's incredible. Thank you to Warp News for making it available for all to read.

Second, I loved Brené Brown's thoughtful post about her actions and decisions relative to Spotify and Joe Rogan. Not sure if you have followed that, but I wish our society processed their responsibility the way Brené does. It's inspiring. There is a way to commit and celebrate free speech responsibly. It is especially true when you are a celebrity with a huge following. How you exercise your responsibility means so much. So, thank you, Brené. We can all learn from her example.

That's it. Have an optimistic and awesome week!