Everything's Amazing & Nobody's Happy

[Fairweather Pure]

I'm an optimist. I always have been. Now, has my happiness helped myself and family lead a better life or am I happy because I live such a good life? I can honestly say I was just as happy living hand to mouth for a decade as I am now.

Anyway, being a Pollyanna has it's downsides I guess. Like, I always find something to like or compliment even when something is shitty. So, I can watch a movie like "The Darkness", and even though the movie was a total train wreck, I cannot help but remember a certain scene where the people are in the car at a stoplight in the rain where the mood and cinematography were really fantastic. That is what I took away from that movie, not necessarily the rest of it which was horrible. Similarly, when talking about a video game I also choose to focus on the good and downplay the bad. I basically find enjoyment and positive in almost every single thing I partake of on this earth.

This forum (any forum), the news, and several of my workmates sometimes focus on the bad so much that it kind of makes me laugh. Just a cautionary reading through a couple of posts, like Winnow's Dragon Age 2 review, Zaelath's comments in the iPad thread, and countless others shows how full of hyperbole and unnecessary disappointment most everyone seems to be filled with these days about pretty much goddamn everything.

Anyway, this was all just an excuse to post this Youtube clip of Louis CK on Conan O'Brian.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk

Where do you fall? Optimist or pessimist?

[masteen]

Somewhere in-between. I'm aware that things aren't AWFUL right now, in the sense that America isn't a third world, malaria and AIDS-ridden shithole, but I'm also aware of where this country is headed if things stay as they are.

Here's a hint: vast wealth disparities inevitably result in one of two things: economic depressions or revolutions. See: America in the 1920's, Batista's Cuba, those dictators we've propped up in the Mid-East, ect. Again, while we're not there YET, unless this countries fiscal policies change, we will be in my lifetime.

[Leonaerd]

Nice post.

I consider myself to be a rationalist, not choosing to align polarity to optimism, happiness or otherwise. I think the differences between optimism and pessimism are gray, and people are generally awful at diagnosing themselves one way or another. The most optimistic people I know are often the most afraid, timid and pessimistic when push comes to shove, while the pessimists have a much more realistic attitude, keeping hope in their back pocket for when they get theirs. To me (and Samuel Beckett), that's the real optimism.

[Fairweather Pure]

I can only speak for myself and my own experiences, but being an optimist and a stupidly positive person has been a major benefit in both my personal and professional life. For instance, when I get angry or complain about something, people listen to me. They take me very, very seriously because when I do have a complaint, it's well thought out and legit. Once again, that is both professionally and personally. After all, serious matters are pretty much the only things I let concern me.

[Leonaerd]

Professionally, that's certainly the smart way to be.

[Aabidano]

Masteen stated the big picture pretty well.

At my level I'm a happy, positive, pessimist. More or less.

To sum up; everything is amazing, and I'm pretty damned happy. It's a wonderful life

[Chidoro]

Louis CK is great. That conan break was covered a in some more detail in his dvd Hilarious.

[Zaelath]

Can I be optimistic that soon most of that amazing shit will go away?

I could tackle them individually, but let's just take the internet and flying: Why learn how to get along with your neighbours and have a good community, when you can just find other freaks that agree with your opinion and hang out with them?

I get Louis' point, but he's making it for comedic effect, not because he thinks it's acceptible to be stuck on a plane on the tarmac for hours to experience the miracle of flight.

In any case, none of my happiness is tied to rubbish like mobile phones. If that's what you're happy about then I guess I envy you, in the same way that I envy downs syndrome kiddies that are fucking ecstatic that they have a new cardboard box to shit in.

[Aabidano]

Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small, green pieces of paper, which is odd, because on the whole, it wasn't the small, green pieces of paper which were unhappy. And so the problem remained, and lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.

[Winnow]

This just got green lighted



http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech ... -s-tallest

[Kilmoll the Sexy]

I hope someone flies a plane into it

[Fairweather Pure]

I hope someone flies a plane into it

Why would you want thousands of innocent people to die?

[Aslanna]

Because he hates freedom.

[masteen]

If it ends up anything like the Burj Dubai, flying a plane into it would only kill the people in the plane and maybe a couple dozen people from the cleaning crew. Who wants a million dollar condo in a repressive shithole country that's second major export after oil is fundamentalism?