On optimism and the human race.
So I read a times magazine article yesterday about the evolution of optimism in the human race, and it got me thinking. The author said we had developed this in our frontal cortex to plan ahead for a brighter future, and pointed out how, when asked to imagine a future event, humans regularly and predictably tell about a better future. The events they tell about are always brighter than life right now, there are no downsides, and the subjects are always happy. She said this was a development so that we could escape our primal roots, and this is where I disagreed. I am normally a very optimistic person, but I have all my life dealt with other family members and friends in depression. Many of them have attempted suicide, 1 has achieved it. Now, let’s bring this back to the stone age, where there are no second chances or ERs or therapists. We have a positive caveman and a negative caveman. Faced with all the negativity (his brother was eaten by a sabertooth tiger, his dad died of the flu, whatever blahblablah) he kills himself. Who’s left to reproduce? The positive one who, although still faced with monumental odds against him, goes on thinking things will get better (they probably really don’t) and doesn’t take the plunge. This happens through all of history. When a person is born negative, and let’s themselves actually think about how pointless it all is, they kindly excuse themselves from the gene pool. The only ones “stupid” enough to keep on trying are the others who ignore the disaster and failure and continue striving towards more.
And here I come to my conclusion. I think that we didn’t “develop” this to survive, I think some people have it and some don’t, and the lucky ones who figure out there isn’t a point get out of here. We are all fools, born of fools, but because of this we have dragged ourselves up by the bootstraps into who we are today.
Ahh fail post is fail, sorry for the brain barf
