We all know the famous psycho-analytical question “Is the glass half full, or is it half empty?” Yes, it is the classic put-me-in-a-box-please test as to whether one is an optimist or a pessimest. Now, I had high hopes of illustrating a third option–the realist–by humble-bragging “personally, I see the glass at 50% capacity”. Upon immediate reflection, however, I realized that, dammit, wouldn’t you know that “capacity” implies how full something is. After all, if I said to you “my bowels are at 50% capacity” you would immediately know that I’m half full of shit. Alternatively, one could theoretically describe an arbitrary container as being “at 50% incapacity”…a little dark, maybe, but nonetheless we would all slap a pessimist label on their back.
The point being, I was overly optimistic that I was going to stick the landing on my monologue, but in reality I just got off topic. Now I have to resort to plain-speak, brevity, and conciseness in order to share the thoughts currently banging around my skull. Ugh-triple-ugh.
J.K. Kidding, I’m going to tell a couple of stories instead. Tricked ya!
My body type is such that I would be extremely pleased if I could hit 205 lbs and maintain that for an extended period of time, especially as I enter the Middle Ages. However, I haven’t really been close to that since getting married almost 12 years ago. At this point, just plain stability would be nice, but even that eludes me.
Anyways, thrice I’ve peaked out close to 250 (see Figure 1). It’s not clear here, but one of those peaks was around the Fourth of July ’14. That particular year I spent the 4th with my brother and his girlfriend in her dad’s beautiful riverside cottage. An irrelavent detail, I know, but it helps set the scene.
The first morning I was there, I got up early, still in my size medium white tee shirt, and was making pancakes for everyone. My brother being a typical older brother, comes in and starts busting my chops about how I really needed to buy larger tee shirts. I looked him dead in the eye and said “I’m a ----- optimist.”
Okay, maybe I wasn’t that gangsta in the moment. If I’m being honest, it was more of a half-defensive “What can I say? I’m optimistic!” His skinny ass probably didn’t appreciate it, but the woman in the room gave me an understanding nod and chuckle.
I like to believe that, despite whatever my current weight is, hope springs eternal for a slimmer self in the relatively near future. Near enough, anyways, that I never get around to buying appropriately sized clothing because, hey, I’m going to be trim any week now, right?
Clearly, my self-perception is that I’m a glass-half-full type of guy. So riddle me this: how in the hell is it that my beloved Natosha swears that I’m a pessimist? Well, after much thought, I think I have figured it out: I’m actually a realist.
For example, when I was finishing up grad school and we were getting ready to move to Hawaii, I got a call from one of my former roommates from Kansas State. It turns out his fiance had gotten into an advanced degree program at UNC, so they were wondering if he could crash with us when she came for her obligatory school visit, and he could look for housing in the meantime.
Whilst hosting them, it occurred to us that if we had loved the quiet little cottage that we had lived in for the past three years, then this young couple might enjoy it for the next five. It was a great plan: we could save our recently widowed landlady the headache of finding new, reliable tenants, at the same time saving my friend the huge pain in the ass of finding a decent place to live. Everyone would win.
So how did I pitch the prospect to them? I spent most of my precious words talking about…mosquitos. The. ----- Mosquitos.
You see, we lived about a quarter mile from one of the town’s water treatment stations, so all the standing water in its reservoir resulted in a rather significant mosquito population emanating outward into the neighborhood. Unfortunately, we were about one house away from where the feast-of-humans zone tapered off into the land-of-tolerance-and-peaceful-coexistence.
All three summers we lived there, I had fancied myself a backyard gardener. It was leading up to that first summer that I learned the hard way that we had a mosquito problem when I stayed out until 9 pm on an early May evening pulling weeds. Despite having a [medium sized] tee shirt on, my profuse sweating made my back an easy snack-target for those little ----- (see Figure 2). Natosha–who is/was a nurse–was a bit shocked that I hadn’t had a much more serious reaction given the many bites I had sustained.
In summary, the mosquito situation not only sucked literal blood, but also figurative balls.
But! But! But! But, the reason I emphasized it was that once they dealt with and accepted that reality, they could understand that it was the most perfect, adorable, wonderful place to live (and affordable, too!). I mean, we would have lived in that house forever if we could have. And if there hadn’t been mosquitos, of course. And fleas. But the fleas were courtesy of Muffin, our cat–but she’s a story for another time.
Let me break down what just happened with some algebra. We could posit that an optimist and a pessimist might cancel each other out and result in a realist (or maybe a nihlist?), ergo:
Optimism + Pessimism = Realism (and vice-versa)
Now, what happens if we subtract the Pessimism from both sides?
Optimism + Pessimism - Pessimism = Realism - Pessimism -->
Optimism = Realism - Pessimism
Interesting theorem, no? In other words, a realistic perspective acknowledges both the positives and negatives of a situation. Let’s not kid ourselves about what’s really going on, yeah? But, by explicitly acknowledging and processing the negative aspects (often aloud), one is left to fully enjoy the positives. While one may externally be complaining, it is wholly possible that they actually have an annoyingly sunny disposition on the inside. And it’s all firmly based in reality.
The point of the story is, be wary of trusting those who are explicitly optimistic. To borrow from the late Rick James, “Delusion is a hell of a drug.”2https://youtu.be/4trBQseIkkc?t=651
Content created on: 10 July 2019 (Wednesday)
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