But There's A Hole In My Bucket List

My friend Theresa gave me this great quote about human nature the other day. Let's sit very quietly while I try to remember it.

Shit. Oh well. (That's not the quote, but it could be, come to think of it).

We were talking about optimists and pessimists, which is one of my three favorite topics in the world (the other two being food, and the dickwads in the Bush administration), and Theresa said...

SHIT. I was sure I was going to be able to trick myself into remembering that way. Clearly, the quote is lost to me forever.

Well, anyway, after Theresa said this great thing, I turned to our friend Amy and said, "You are an optimist, Amy, I bet you wake up to every fucking cloudy morning in May and say, 'soon the weather will be better' instead of seeing another fucking cloudy day in May."

And Amy said, in all sincerity, "But it already is getting warmer."

And oh, how we laughed. But I can barely be friends with Amy now.

What is the benefit of having optimisitic friends, really?  They only make you feel worse about yourself. Which, although, come to think of it, affirms my pessimistic contention that I will never be able to see things in a positive way. I will never feel better about myself. Ever.  Which is the ultimate pessimistic truth. So I win.

Hunh. I win. It all works out in the end. Oh wait, "it all works out" is an optimistic thought. Damn it. I just can't win. Oh wait, "I just can't win" is pessimistic.

Well, I do not see myself getting any other work done today. There is so much to ponder. Pass the bong. And the Wheat Thins.

It's like the adult version of "There's A Hole In My Bucket", a song that used to intrigue me when I was young. I would sing it over and over again, not hoping that the ending would magically change and Willy would find something with which to patch the hole (which is what an optimistic young child would hope, I suppose) but because the moment of, "...but there's a hole in my bucket", the delicious realization that it is never going to change, that the fucking bucket is always going to have a hole in it, that everything bad will always be bad- well, those are the moments that a young Jewish, hand-wringing, nightmare-burdened, pink-glitter framed Coke bottle eyeglass wearing, grammar-rules-loving, eight-year-old Dr. Strangemom lives for.

Yes, I was Dr. Strangemom even back then. Only I was pretty much only known as Strange.

There is some research out there that posits we are capable of changing our outlook on things. This study found that optimistic people have two positive thoughts for every one negative thought. So I thought about any three thoughts in my head, and here's what I came up with:

1. People CAN change.

2. I am hungry again.

3. I hate George Bush.

Which are THREE POSITIVE THOUGHTS! With an exclamation mark! Which is a kind of mark I NEVER used in my old negative life! Unbefuckinglievable. This shit works. I guess I've been wrong my whole life about this. Which means I've probably been wrong about everything.

Which is what I always secretly knew about myself. I will always be wrong.

So, really, I win again.

 

 

 

Comments

[Claire]

I promise you you can't out pessimism ME. I'm the queen of pessimism. Ask my kids.

[Dr. Strangemom]

Claire, I will never be able to be as pessimistic as you. Never.

[Dr. Strangemom]

Theresa just sent me the quote:
"The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." --George Will

[Amy]

See? There's even a nice part about being a pessimist.
- Amy the fucking optimist

[Debbie]

Want to feel REALLY pessimistic? Not more than 2 minutes after I read this post I was looking at a booklist (my day job) and this book came up:

We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism, by John Derbyshire

with this description:

Derbyshire, a columnist and contributing editor for The National Review, confronts the "mendacity of hope" in this irreverent-sometimes-inflammatory screed...Derbyshire impresses upon his audience the necessity of maintaining a pessimistic view of human nature; happy talk, he says, is for children, fools and leftists...

We ARE doomed. Right again, Ann....

[Madgew]

I am the internal optimist. Want lessons? Love your blog.

[Madgew]

Eternal as well! Always try to stay in happy.