“Hope is the opiate of modern homo sapiens. What motivates humans and stimulates their progress is the commonly shared belief that life will get better for the hopeful and the hopeless. Hope can be obtained from healthcare providers, religious consultants, and secular leaders.”
Everyone knows that “hope springs eternal in the human breast;” particularly for those who have it made, those on the verge of making it, and those who have convinced themselves that they deserve to make it.
When “reality” interferes with gratifying those who are optimistically hoping and praying for an improved life, then their conviction can be severely tested. If some small reward doesn’t present itself to the optimistic in the process of living, and the battles with numerous insurmountable obstacles along the way wear down their perseverance, a few struggling optimists lose hope and succumb to despair.
Not many people become a national celebrity, a well paid athlete, or a wealthy CEO. And only a handful of each generation make it to the Halls of Fame and have the number on their jersey retired by their employer.
In spite of formidable odds, Utopia is the goal for many positive-thinking folks, and nothing can deter them from pursuing that distant objective. They are convinced that their situation in life is bound to get better. It certainly can’t get worse in many places.
In troubled times like these, denial enters into the picture. Without the strong habit of denying what our human senses reveal to us, a thoroughly educated optimist is most likely to become a pessimist. To quote the anonymous definition of a pessimist that was published in a local newspaper: “A pessimist is just a well informed optimist.”
The famous social critic, H.L. Mencken, wrote sarcastically: “Hope is a pathological belief in the occurrence of the impossible.”
Denial is key to remaining a full-blown optimist. Many things happen in human life that are discouraging, disappointing, and even disastrous, but these ominous signs about reality can be ignored if you diligently practice denial.
The influence peddlers in today’s politically correct human society prompt a person to be an “eternal optimist” – as long as he or she continues to breathe. The irreversible time line prods all creatures to do what they can to survive one more day.
Living day by tedious day presents many opportunities to indulge in being hopeful and optimistic. Each moment allows humans to deny that the overall objective of animal life is to pass on genes and get out of the way of the evolutionary process.
But that modern scientific philosophy sucks. Adopt an optimistic belief system, and external things automatically will seem better, even when they are not.
The average optimist fervently believes that one day human society will come to embrace the altruistic Communist philosophy: “From each according to his/her ability to each according to his/her needs.” (Aren’t all humans talented in one way or another and ready to serve others?)
Love your neighbor AND your enemies, unless you happen to believe in the theory of evolution that promises only the fittest survive. Hope for the best: that your genes will be the ones selected for the grand human experiment that produces descendants who will eventually take over the universe. Then dream on about going to heaven to enjoy eternal human happiness!
The simple formula for human happiness is: Optimism + Denial = Happiness (sometime, somewhere, somehow).
How can any educated human deny that mathematical logic? It’s just basic algebra.
