on being a romantic
Those who know me (which is pretty much all of you reading this) know that I have an incredibly sunny disposition. I remember talking with my Toronto housemates about the supposed correlation between sleep and mood, and if I was like this (fanatically chipper) on barely enough sleep (I would get regularly between 5 and 6 hours of sleep every night), they feared the day that I receive the recommended daily amounts.
Ha.
But I guess I can see where they're coming from. No one could be this optimistic, this good natured, this happy ALL the time?
Amazingly, they can, or I can. Or rather I am when I am around other people. Maybe it's a genetic thing, because during this past Christmas holiday, while visiting my parents I discovered that my ever-smiling mom was going through rough times, and was despondent, morose, even aggressive when it came to talking about certain issues (not to me but to my dad). However when she was around me, she was completely normal, happy, my mom. And so there's something about being around certain people - or just people in general - that brings out the good in us.
In a recent post, I tried to convince myself as much as you, dear readers, that I was losing my optimism - that I was coming to grips with a creeping sense of practical realism. Who was I kidding? As cynical as I try to be about certain situations, I'm always willing to give the benefit of the doubt, have faith in people, believe that we are much more altruistic than pessimists would try to sell us. This quixotic belief in the goodness of individuals has most recently shown itself in a series of discussions I've had with a group of graduate students, where I end up sounding naive and foolish because everything that comes out of my mouth intones ideas about cooperation and goodwill and trust, while most everyone else speaks of prejudice, inequality, selfishness.
The thing is I *do* understand the pessimist's viewpoint, but I refuse to believe that it needs to be this way (even if this is the present situation). And sure it might mean that I might get walked all over in the future, putting my trust in a place it shouldn't be put, but until that moment, I don't mind one bit believing that we're all going to be OK in the end (I mean c'mon; someone's gotta do it).
Ha.
But I guess I can see where they're coming from. No one could be this optimistic, this good natured, this happy ALL the time?
Amazingly, they can, or I can. Or rather I am when I am around other people. Maybe it's a genetic thing, because during this past Christmas holiday, while visiting my parents I discovered that my ever-smiling mom was going through rough times, and was despondent, morose, even aggressive when it came to talking about certain issues (not to me but to my dad). However when she was around me, she was completely normal, happy, my mom. And so there's something about being around certain people - or just people in general - that brings out the good in us.
In a recent post, I tried to convince myself as much as you, dear readers, that I was losing my optimism - that I was coming to grips with a creeping sense of practical realism. Who was I kidding? As cynical as I try to be about certain situations, I'm always willing to give the benefit of the doubt, have faith in people, believe that we are much more altruistic than pessimists would try to sell us. This quixotic belief in the goodness of individuals has most recently shown itself in a series of discussions I've had with a group of graduate students, where I end up sounding naive and foolish because everything that comes out of my mouth intones ideas about cooperation and goodwill and trust, while most everyone else speaks of prejudice, inequality, selfishness.
The thing is I *do* understand the pessimist's viewpoint, but I refuse to believe that it needs to be this way (even if this is the present situation). And sure it might mean that I might get walked all over in the future, putting my trust in a place it shouldn't be put, but until that moment, I don't mind one bit believing that we're all going to be OK in the end (I mean c'mon; someone's gotta do it).