contrasting viewpoints

"The middling sort reads my poems and proclaims them deep.
Only the enlightened masters read my poems and laugh."
- Han Shan

Life is humorous! Life is full of joy that can and will be broken down so that we can find it again. Humans are born optimistic, thinking that the world is theirs for the taking. We all have a path that we follow, perhaps not conscious of the fact that we are on a path at all. Our path will inevitably come to some amount of struggle that becomes our burden. Life is burdensome, but the burden can be enjoyed! The burden must be turned into an ordeal. The word "burden" implies an encumbrance, something that bothers us and only holds us back. "Ordeal" carries the challenge of a mountain with the implications of reward. Optimism has been besmirched by today's world by being characterized by delusion and blindness. The real sense of optimism is not simplistic faith, but a belief that good things happen and can be made to happen. The silly mantra "There is a reason for everything" comes from the idea of God's plan for people. Taken away from the context of a supreme power this mantra is a beneficial way of looking at the world. Every ordeal can have a lesson in it if one wishes to find it. In this way the world is inherently good. The world can be learned from so that happiness can possibly be found.



The world is inherently evil. Happy moments are simply brief respites from the unending parade of pain and death. Love forms for the express purpose to end, it seems. We are built up by our hopes and dreams to be torn down by other people's vices. As we curse the world for damning our existence we are unknowingly damning someone else's existence. If there is a man who has not negatively impacted a single life then he has impacted none and is solitary. Does that man find happiness? He has no pain to compare it to. Knowledge of one brings about the other.

I choose to live life for the good. I am fully aware of hate and evil and I hate the world for apparently being inveterate in these. BUT! Do good things not happen to me? Can I not find solace in simple details in my life or that life in itself? Those who seek the good while acknowledging its unlikelihood are as optimistic as those who refuse to admit the world has evil present in it. Wanting good and wanting life to be positive is optimism at its truest. The world is not complicated when it is broken down. We have made it more complicated as people, but there remain basic values in life. Fear, love, happiness, hatred will always be present in humans. Both ends of the emotional spectrum can be attained and while love is harder to come by, is it nonetheless possible?

"You know what an optimist is? They are someone who thinks: 'Hey maybe something nice will happen."- Louis CK

What is wrong with that Louis? Everyone wants that nice thing but not everyone looks for it. If we look for good and deny hate then love will find us. Simplify the world and it is easier to stay a living member of it.