https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/15/how-the-light-gets-in/
"Of all the tools that I use to maintain my equilibrium in these dark days,
none is so important as remembering the distinction between happiness, optimism
and hope.
Happiness is self-explanatory – and fleeting. Even in the worst of times, there
are moments of happiness – a delicious meal with friends, a beautiful sunrise,
a stolen moment with your love. These are the things we chase, and rightly so.
But happiness is always a goal, rarely a steady state.
Optimism, on the other hand, is a toxin to be avoided. Optimism is a subgenre
of fatalism, the belief that things will get better no matter what we do. It's
just the obverse of pessimism. Both are ways of denying human agency. To be an
optimist is to be a passenger of history, along for the ride, with no hope of
changing its course.
But hope? That's the stuff. Hope is the belief that if we change the world for
the better, even by just a
little, that we will ascend a gradient towards a
better future, and as we rise up that curve, new terrain will be revealed to us
that we couldn't see from our lower vantage-point. It's not necessary – or even
possible – to see a course from here to the world you want to live in. You can
get there in stepwise fashion, one beneficial change at a time:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/03/hope-not-optimism/
These days, I am often unhappy, but I am
filled with hope."
Via Rod Mesa and Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
