I have always maintained pessimism is a better outlook. Apart from the preparedness element, let's look at how people view the current day.
An optimist expects tomorrow to be better - they are living in the future.
A pessimist knows tomorrow will be worse. Today is the best day of the rest of your life, so enjoy it. And guess what? Tomorrow, while worse than today, will also be the best day of the rest of your life.
A leading presenter on China Central Television's English-language channel has revealed himself to be a xenophobic hate-monger. WHY does he still have a job? Lobby for his dismissal - by any and all means.
Days Ai Weiwei was detained
80
With ironic, sinister symmetry, the celebrity artist/activist was incarcerated on the same day that my friend Wu Yuren was finally released from 10 months' detention.
Now, like Wu, he's been released on extremely restrictive 'bail' terms - but could face re-arrest at any moment. He was detained incommunicado from April 3rd to June 22nd 2011.
Days Wu Yuren was in prison
307
"Released on parole" after 10 months; "parole" lifted another year later. The original charges against him were apparently dropped without his trial ever being formally concluded.
Froog is an escaped lawyer - but there is no need for alarm; he is only a danger to himself, not to the general public. An eternal wanderer, he now lives in an exotic city somewhere in the 'Third World' *, where he is held prisoner by an unfinished novel (or, more precisely, an unstarted novel). He spends a lot of time running, writing, taking photographs, and falling in love with women who fail to appreciate him. He also spends a lot of time in bars.
[* OK, I'll come clean: I've been living in Beijing since summer '02.]
3 comments:
I have always maintained pessimism is a better outlook. Apart from the preparedness element, let's look at how people view the current day.
An optimist expects tomorrow to be better - they are living in the future.
A pessimist knows tomorrow will be worse. Today is the best day of the rest of your life, so enjoy it. And guess what? Tomorrow, while worse than today, will also be the best day of the rest of your life.
It's a liberating view of the world, I think.
Quite an evolved philosophy, BC. You've obviously been giving the matter a lot of thought.
Maybe I should get you to do a guest post on here?
It is something I have thought often about.
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