Pessimism: Its Mistaken Perspective
I've heard there are people with such sunny dispositions that they never
give way to sadness. The rumor is that they always make lemonade from
their lemons. And the boast is that they can always win at cards - no
matter the hand they get dealt. They always come out of tough times on
the winning side, always cure their own illnesses with positive
thinking, and are always loved by all who know them. Maybe there are
such people. I doubt it.
Don't get me wrong! There is certainly value to looking for silver
linings over getting lost in the dense fog of a dark cloud. In fact, if
I had to choose between being a naive optimist and marching to the beat
of the pessimist's drum, I would hope to be confused with Forrest Gump
over Eeyore.
There is lots of pessimism in the air these days. There's pessimism over
the Middle East and the economy. There is Eeyore-like melancholy over
the state of world and national leadership. You name it. Somebody is
there to tell us why things are worse than they've ever been - and
destined soon to get worse still.
Maybe the pessimist lives under the delusion of Golden Age Syndrome. For
most of my life, I have had to endure the lament of older people wishing
for "the good old days" and "things as they used to be." I've always
been skeptical of those people and have been inclined to suspect they
have selective memory.
Now that I have lived a while, I'm trying to keep from using those
phrases myself. Economics, politics, human relationships, religion - I
seriously doubt there has ever been a time when all these things were
just right.
Professor Walter Jackson Bate quotes a dejected Egyptian scribe who
lived more than 2,000 years before Christ. The scribe commented on the
limitations of language and wrote dejectedly of the fact that there were
no fresh, new ways of saying things. On his view, "men of old" had
created all the phrases that were possible for human language and had
exhausted them by his time. Therefore all human expression had grown
stale. Language was bankrupt.
As Professor Bate points out, this pessimistic requiem was sung over
civilization before any of what we now take to be the world's greatest
works of literature had been composed. Maybe the scribe was premature!
If all the pessimists across time had been correct in speaking of their
generation going to the dogs, exhausting every creative option, or being
abandoned by God, you and I would not be here to reflect on it.
Without either being naive or embracing Gump-ism, there is more value in
facing the coming week with a positive, forward-looking spirit than
wallowing in sadness over our loss of a perfection that never was.
Rubel Shelly
Rubel Shelly is a Preacher and Professor of Religion and Philosophy
located in Rochester Hills, Michigan. In addition to church and academic
responsibilities, he has worked actively with such community projects as
Habitat for Humanity, American Red Cross, From Nashville With Love,
Metro (Nashville) Public Schools, Faith Family Medical Clinic, and
Operation Andrew Ministries. To learn more about Rubel please go to:
www.RubelShelly.com
I've heard there are people with such sunny dispositions that they never
give way to sadness. The rumor is that they always make lemonade from
their lemons. And the boast is that they can always win at cards - no
matter the hand they get dealt. They always come out of tough times on
the winning side, always cure their own illnesses with positive
thinking, and are always loved by all who know them. Maybe there are
such people. I doubt it.
Don't get me wrong! There is certainly value to looking for silver
linings over getting lost in the dense fog of a dark cloud. In fact, if
I had to choose between being a naive optimist and marching to the beat
of the pessimist's drum, I would hope to be confused with Forrest Gump
over Eeyore.
There is lots of pessimism in the air these days. There's pessimism over
the Middle East and the economy. There is Eeyore-like melancholy over
the state of world and national leadership. You name it. Somebody is
there to tell us why things are worse than they've ever been - and
destined soon to get worse still.
Maybe the pessimist lives under the delusion of Golden Age Syndrome. For
most of my life, I have had to endure the lament of older people wishing
for "the good old days" and "things as they used to be." I've always
been skeptical of those people and have been inclined to suspect they
have selective memory.
Now that I have lived a while, I'm trying to keep from using those
phrases myself. Economics, politics, human relationships, religion - I
seriously doubt there has ever been a time when all these things were
just right.
Professor Walter Jackson Bate quotes a dejected Egyptian scribe who
lived more than 2,000 years before Christ. The scribe commented on the
limitations of language and wrote dejectedly of the fact that there were
no fresh, new ways of saying things. On his view, "men of old" had
created all the phrases that were possible for human language and had
exhausted them by his time. Therefore all human expression had grown
stale. Language was bankrupt.
As Professor Bate points out, this pessimistic requiem was sung over
civilization before any of what we now take to be the world's greatest
works of literature had been composed. Maybe the scribe was premature!
If all the pessimists across time had been correct in speaking of their
generation going to the dogs, exhausting every creative option, or being
abandoned by God, you and I would not be here to reflect on it.
Without either being naive or embracing Gump-ism, there is more value in
facing the coming week with a positive, forward-looking spirit than
wallowing in sadness over our loss of a perfection that never was.
Rubel Shelly
Rubel Shelly is a Preacher and Professor of Religion and Philosophy
located in Rochester Hills, Michigan. In addition to church and academic
responsibilities, he has worked actively with such community projects as
Habitat for Humanity, American Red Cross, From Nashville With Love,
Metro (Nashville) Public Schools, Faith Family Medical Clinic, and
Operation Andrew Ministries. To learn more about Rubel please go to:
www.RubelShelly.com
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