Hip hop dancers, Quincy Market
Today I invented a new word in the shower and is this: "depressimist." A depressimist is that type of guy who is not a pessimist, but whom life hasn't supplied with the evidence for being an optimist.
Now, an optimist has a theory of life that involves things going well and also doing things well. It's obviously the best of the available choices, only, the more explosions, hyena attacks, corporate layoffs, and assassination attempts you survive, the harder it is to add it all up and maintain that shiny belief system.
The pessimist has things simpler, existential doubt-wise. He's sure that the world is sh*tty. See, the pessimist still believes he knows what the world is all about. Whatever you do, it's going to turn out badly. Certainty, there.
A depressimism is a wholly different state. The depressimist thinks "It *could* be okay, if only I weren't doing it all wrong." There's hope there, but also anxiety.
Pessimists are kind of stupid, to me. I mean you can look around the world and see for yourself all the cool things that people have created, from rocket ships to hot coffee to laptops to blowjobs to mandolins. It just doesn't make any sense to believe that life always has to turn out badly every hour of the day.
But on certain days, the depressimist is inordinately miserable not to be one of those people doing things well, doing life well. Buried inside her is the belief that if she could just get a handle on the damn thing, she could learn to ride it like a bicycle. Life.
Did you ever see that nature special with the elephants, where one baby elephant is born with a crooked knee, and the whole herd keeps walking faster, and you just want them to be able to slow down while he figures out how to walk with a crooked knee, but they can't? Like that.
In all honesty, I believe what the Buddhists tell us. In the midst of suffering, only existing in the moment provides an alternative to the cycle of hope and disappointment that goes on and on forever. Only letting it be that you don't know the answers lets you go on. Also, I'm pretty sure that the rest of the herd is just around the next corner.
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