News:

We've got artists, scientists, scholars, pranksters, publishers, songwriters, and political activists.  We've subjected Discordia to scrutiny, torn it apart, and put it back together. We've written songs about it, we've got a stack of essays, and, to refer back to your quote above, we criticize the hell out of each other.

Main Menu

Optimists: A Call to Arms

Started by Eater of Clowns, October 23, 2009, 10:26:18 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Eater of Clowns

"Every rant here lately starts with a quote.  Why is this happening all of a sudden?"
                          -Eater of Clowns

"Sometimes it's several quotes, too.  It really seems to be only a recent thing."
                          -Eater of Clowns

I consider myself an optimist.  A cynic, possibly paradoxically, but never pessimistic.  Cautiously, I approach situations just thinking everything is going to turn out all right.

Does this sound naive?  That's because optimism is so frequently defined by its naivety.  Phrases like happy-go-lucky spring to mind and we imagine this pathetic, exuberant creature charging headfirst into a wall of shit with a dumb smile.  This doesn't need to be the case.  Optimists, this is our call to action.  It's time to walk confidently up to that shit-wall and declare "I bet I can get around this motherfucker and it won't be all that shitty."

One problem is that pessimists, traditionally, tend to have their wits about them.  They can look at the The Shitwall and say "It stretches on for miles in both directions.  It's all gloopy so if you try to dig through, it'll collapse on you.  Also there seems to be peanuts in it and it smells bad."  All of these are valid points, as is the idea that we can all just find another place to go and another challenge to undertake.  But for some of these people, every challenge is insurmountable, every effort deadly and every minutiae a threat.  The human race might as well cower in the shadow of every disease, predator, storm, and human race that happens its way.

That is, of course, not the majority of pessimists, like the majority of optimists aren't the headlong into The Great Shitwall of Shitville type.  So why let ourselves be portrayed in the extreme?  Because it doesn't matter because everything will turn out okay?  Fuck that.  It does matter and things will be okay because we'll fucking make it okay, and we're not going to be stupid about it.  And we'll very likely fail and get all shitty, but so what?  Better that than give up.  You see, Shitula, Duke of Shitville, Home of The Great Shitwall wants you to think all your efforts will come to nothing, that you'll have died horribly and young and horribly young having never achieved anything.  Well flip him the finger and show him that even if he's right, you had a goddamn blast doing it, and that makes it just fine by you.

Optimists, fight on, keep your wits about you, and have a nice day.

-EoC
Quote from: Pippa Twiddleton on December 22, 2012, 01:06:36 AM
EoC, you are the bane of my existence.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 07, 2014, 01:18:23 AM
EoC doesn't make creepy.

EoC makes creepy worse.

Quote
the afflicted persons get hold of and consume carrots even in socially quite unacceptable situations.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

I'm also an optimist. Bet you couldn't tell! Fucking ray of sunshine, people call me; they say I'm always looking at the bright side.

You're a good writer, keep it up.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Pope Pixie Pickle


Cramulus

       Optimists Unite!
                /



Dimocritus

HOUSE OF GABCab ~ "caecus plumbum caecus"

Cain

Quote from: Eater of Clowns on October 23, 2009, 10:26:18 PM
"Every rant here lately starts with a quote.  Why is this happening all of a sudden?"
                          -Eater of Clowns

"Sometimes it's several quotes, too.  It really seems to be only a recent thing."
                          -Eater of Clowns

Because quotes are awesome, that's why.

P3nT4gR4m

Quote from: Cain on October 24, 2009, 08:01:40 PM
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on October 23, 2009, 10:26:18 PM
"Every rant here lately starts with a quote.  Why is this happening all of a sudden?"
                          -Eater of Clowns

"Sometimes it's several quotes, too.  It really seems to be only a recent thing."
                          -Eater of Clowns

Because quotes are awesome, that's why.

That's my new fucking sig that is. Just see if it isn't!

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

Cain

Meta-self-references will get you everywhere in this world.

Eater of Clowns

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on October 24, 2009, 10:29:46 PM
Quote from: Cain on October 24, 2009, 08:01:40 PM
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on October 23, 2009, 10:26:18 PM
"Every rant here lately starts with a quote.  Why is this happening all of a sudden?"
                          -Eater of Clowns

"Sometimes it's several quotes, too.  It really seems to be only a recent thing."
                          -Eater of Clowns

Because quotes are awesome, that's why.

That's my new fucking sig that is. Just see if it isn't!

Quote from: Cain on October 24, 2009, 11:11:05 PM
Meta-self-references will get you everywhere in this world.

:lulz:
Quote from: Pippa Twiddleton on December 22, 2012, 01:06:36 AM
EoC, you are the bane of my existence.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 07, 2014, 01:18:23 AM
EoC doesn't make creepy.

EoC makes creepy worse.

Quote
the afflicted persons get hold of and consume carrots even in socially quite unacceptable situations.

LMNO

I consider myself an optimist.

Mrs LMNO: Bullshit.  Any time something comes up, you're the first one to list off all the associated problems, and why it's not going to work.

Me: You bet I am.  Because when you can find out how it's not gonna work, you can get on with doing it right.




LMNO
-If you know there's a puddle of shit up the road, bring a portable bridge.

Bu🤠ns

EoC: mittens:

This is wonderul. Just what I needed about now. Thanks!

typ3

Hell yeah. This especially applies to personal life.
:hippie:

Jenne


*GrumpButt*

Optimists unite! 

I am not a happy go lucky kind of person. But I do find a bright side to everything that falls into my lap.

GO US! :D
*sigh* You have to be kidding me.

Epimetheus

I cast Alchemy on that Shitwall and turn it into Goldwall! Oh...fuck...it's still a huge fucking wall. At least the Duke looks horrified.
POST-SINGULARITY POCKET ORGASM TOAD OF RIGHTEOUSNESS