Schopenhauer: 'A Pessimist IS an Optimist' | Philosophy | The Joys of Optimistic Pessimism

[JohnM-cdou]

I've felt like this my entire life, i would get in trouble as a kid for being "too pessimistic", but I didn't feel that I was being pessimistic at all, I just felt that I was being a realist

[TheNoobtron]

I prefer pessimistic optimism opposed to optimistic pessimism especially when dealing with existential matters. Great video as always!

[chrisloukas]

Schopenhauer admired Buddhism before it was cool . A real champ .

[gracefitzgerald]

Holy sh$t dude! I was a spoiled optimist for 45 years until a tragic event. 45 was 2 years ago, this video hit close to home.

[mrdillerfar]

Most optimists I have met do not seem to be like: "About time." when positive things happen or indeed to be less happy about them because they expect them to happen. They just seem to be very happy about them (and in general). Besides that, I wholeheartedly agree.

Optimistic pessimism is by and large a much better strategy for self-protection. It avoids the defense mechanism of denial which in the short-term will protect people but will make reality hit much harder when the levee breaks. You avoid psychologically harmful experiences which will eventually penetrate your denial at some point as well as physically risky experiences that overconfidence might lead you to while still reaping the benefits of being happy about the good experiences you have.

[westoncurnow]

Thank you for the video, sir. I think your concepts of the negating optimist and the spoiled optimist are both compelling classifications of the folly that is optimism. As an American, I have noticed that most of my countrymen are living under a deceitful combination of both negating and spoiled optimism. Negating, on one hand, because Americans love to display their Hollywood smiles for all to see. We too practice the British stiff upper lip in the United States but instead of being a tool for composure and emotional stability, we take it to another level of purely toxic happiness, not unlike the city dwellers in Brave New World. Thus, we try and convince ourselves that we are always happy and see no reason for confronting our pain and sorrows. On the other hand, Americans practice spoiled optimism because most of us can't conceptualize just how good we have it. We have been spoiled by living in such a resource and materially wealthy nation that we naturally do expect things to be "happy". Again, really well-done video.

[Bilboswaggins]

You should look up Taoism. The vibe I get from it is that the glass is neither full or half full. It’s just a glass

[Nibrata]

I recommend compressing your audio, it seems like you are 8ft away. I feel like your videos will be a lot better if you just fix your mic. Thanks for the video tho amazing like always 🔥❤️

[bonafide_idiot]

How peculiar, I used to be a pessimist but there was a point when the amount of work that I could have been doing to make something happen sucessfully was lessening, many times it would result to failures, but since I expected it to be a dead end the disappointment that I experienced or utilized wasn't as much in contrast to the disappointment I would have experienced or utilized if I was a bit more optimistic, that's when I realized that disappointment can be helpful since it's like a wake-up call, a reality check, in a sense. After that I tried to be more optimistic to the point where it would give me the ability to be more flexible and not be naive, and one where it wouldn't hinder the best of me that I could be to actualize.


I suppose one could say I was being a nihillist, and not a pessimist.
Either way I still consider that realization as a helpful thing.

[mordanthamster]

Another excellent video. Grand stuff. My fave author is Charles Bukowski... I think he would share large areas of agreement with you... just my opinion. Please carry on with this great stuff!

[WhitesandComposer]

hi man great video, do you need music for your videos and would like to collab maybe?

[zacthompson]

Great video thankyou, I was looking for a video you made on objects and how branded objects have a new value in modern times. I need it for Uni but cannot find it. Any help? Its also possible it was not this channel. Either way thankyou for making such great content.

[willieluncheonette]

" A pessimist is an optimist who has become frustrated with his optimism. He hoped too much and failed, he dreamed too much and could not achieve anything substantial.

The pessimist is an optimist standing on his head; they are not different fellows — that's what I want to make clear to you. Unless you have been an optimist you can never be a pessimist. First you have to become an optimist.

And each child is brought up with great optimism. All parents think that they have great children. Ask any mother: she thinks she has the unique child; the most superior, rare, incomparable. Each mother brags about the child. Parents bring up children with great optimism that they are going to be Alexander the Greats or Jesus Christs or Gautam Buddhas.

But slowly slowly life proves just the contrary. Slowly slowly, the child becomes aware of his ordinariness. He becomes aware that these great dreams, that these great ambitions, cannot be fulfilled. And by the time one is coming closer to forty, forty-two, pessimism starts settling — gloom, darkness….

Now medical science is aware that most heart attacks happen nearabout forty to forty-four, between those four years. Most people go mad between those four years, forty to forty-four. Psychologists, psychoanalysts, are aware that that is the most dangerous time. If you can remain sane beyond forty-four, that means you will remain sane. But many people fall flat.

And don't think that if you are sane even beyond forty-four… that does not mean that you are very intelligent. It may only be that you are very dull and it takes a long time for you to understand. It may only be that you are very insensitive. It may only be that you are foolhardy, that you don't listen to life, what life is saying, that you go on hoping.

But sooner or later, a person starts feeling that life has gone down the drain. Optimism turns sour and becomes pessimism. Optimism, that hopefulness, turns upside-down; a hopelessness settles in. Then everything looks dark and dismal. First you used to count the roses, now you start counting the thorns. First you used to say, "How beautiful this roseflower and what a miracle! It grows amongst thousands of thorns." You were poetic, you had some aesthetic sense; you still believed that life is going to be a fulfillment.

But soon the day comes when the roses start fading away and you start counting the thorns, and you cannot believe in the roses anymore. You start saying, "It is impossible! The rose must be a dream, the rose must be MAYA, illusion, hallucination. How is it possible amongst thousands of thorns, how is a rose possible?" It looks contradictory, it looks illogical, it cannot happen in the nature of things. You start counting nights; before, you used to count days.

The optimist says, "There are two days, and between two days just a small night to rest." And the pessimist counts the nights; he says, "There are two long nights — nightmares, ugly dreams, tortures — and just a small day sandwiched between the two." Life is the same: you can count the days or you can count the nights. If you count the days you are an optimist, if you count the nights you are a pessimist, but there is really no difference.

The optimist can become a pessimist, the pessimist can become an optimist. They are not contraries; they are two points on the same spectrum.

One has to go beyond both. A sannyasin has to go beyond both — neither hope nor hopelessness. No need to count days, no need to count nights. Be a watcher! No need to count thorns, no need to count roses. Be a watcher….

I don't teach you optimism. In the West it is very fashionable nowadays; it is called "positive thinking." That is a new name for optimism; the old name has become a little too out of fashion, out-of-date. The new name is positive thinking. I don't teach you positive thinking, because positive thinking carries the negative in its wake.

I teach you transcendence — neither positive nor negative. Be a watcher: witness both. When there is day, witness the day, and when there is night, witness the night — and don't get identified with either. You are neither the day nor the night; you are the transcendental consciousness. Become more and more centered there in that transcendence.

True religion is not positive, nor is it negative. It is neither via negativa nor via positiva; it is via transcendence.

There are people who are continuously looking for the negative — and if you look for the negative you will find it, because the negative is there in the same proportion as the positive.

If you look for the positive, you will find the positive. But by finding the positive you cannot destroy the negative; the negative is there, side by side. They are always together like negative and positive poles of electricity. You can't have electricity with one pole, you will need both.

Life needs both: thorns and roses, days and nights, happiness/unhappiness, birth/death.
Be a witness to it all and you will know something that is beyond birth, beyond death; something that is beyond darkness and beyond light; something that is beyond happiness, beyond unhappiness. Buddha has called it peace, nirvana."

[notimportant]

I'm was a pessimist since childhood and a nihilist of sorts. And I've always considered my pessimism one of my strongest characteristics.
I've grown to acknowledge value in getting up and building something ground-up, see it coming to life throughout persistant effort.
I also happen to dislike SJW because they're depressingly optimistic.

[oipnoirzzrionpio]

Hello, does anyone know the name of the painter who made the painting with the trees?

[albertmarti]

Would be cool to hear you give your opinion on how this intertwines with confidence

[thomastyler]

Anyone know the name of the painting at 0.40?

[joegambitt]

I think pessimist its just pure realism, maybe

[thetruth]

Schopenhauer`s pessimism when i read it brings me a feeling of hope. It`s quite strange
i do think Optimism brings a happier life though. I am sort of jealous of the people who are full of optimism they seem to enjoy and love life and every part of it, but i think that they also seem to live for other people like me. They make life seem amazing and having them around me makes me more optimistic myself.

Schopenhauer was a genius mind but i would not want to be around him for anything other then debates etc
same applies to Nietzsche

[rikquishewright]

Voltaire's Candide was definitely a negating optimist.