Category Archives: optimism

Thomas Ligotti

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Thomas Ligotti is my kind of guy, sorta.  He always expects the worst.  He spends all his time worrying about how he’s going to suffer and die and expects that everyone else is just the same, except some of us are better at fooling ourselves about the outcome.  That makes him mad.  He thinks all the folks that don’t worry about dying and suffering are deceiving themselves and just distracting themselves with ideas of afterlives or just having a good time, you know, trying not to think about it.  And he’s right, but these other folks are a whole lot happier than he is.  Now we can see the real problem, sorta.

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Ligotti has a big head, a really big head and that’s why he thinks about all these dreary things all the time instead of watching television or playing golf.  He’s always talking about how consciousness and self awareness are a tragedy and a curse on humankind; a crappy adaptation that evolution sneaked in there.  The thing he forgets is most people are really unconscious most of the time anyway, even when they’re not sleeping; they’re clueless about this kind of stuff, so why does he want to remind them and take them into his pity party?  Leave them alone with their fairy tale lives.  Don’t bring ’em down.  Don’t rain on their parade.  Not enough hobbies I guess.  Not enough television.  Not enough high speed internet downloading those “short films.”

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Well what’s Ligotti’s answer?  Don’t have any kids.  That’s it.  What, you say?  That makes him feel better about things?  Yeah, his basic argument is that by having kids we doom all the future generations to the suffering and death we have so we shouldn’t have any:  antinatalism they call it.  Let the species die out.  Well if Ligotti had any kids he wouldn’t be worrying about his great grandbaby’s suffering, he’d be worrying about his own suffering trying to deal with his own kids, getting them through college and boyfriends, etc.  I bet his parents suffered plenty with him.  Forget about future generation’s suffering.  Besides his kids would be the kind that would suffer because all the bullies would rag them about their egghead dad.

I think his problem maybe is really low testosterone and therefore low sperm count.  He isn’t gettin’ it on enough.  Only those coffin chicks would even consider hangin’ out with him he’s so dreary and down.  He needs to jerk it more too, take some of the tension and pressure off it.  He can’t have kids so he wants us to join him.  Sour grapes.

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Ligotti writes a horror story about once every decade or so, when he isn’t feeling sorry for himself and the rest of us.  They’re pretty good, but enigmatic.  Now I don’t expect you to understand a word like that, nor a story like that, because you are correctly spending your time feeling good and not worrying about future generation’s suffering or how the joke’s on us.  Stay away from funerals.  Hide the razorblades.

Sure, we’re all going to step off the pier sometime, but why waste any time thinking about that?  Remember I told you to always expect the worst, so now that that’s over let’s move on to feelin’ good.

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I’ve given you all the prescription you need in this blog to quit thinking about that dirt nap:  TV, NCIS, loud music, giant monster movies, malt liquor.  So, mix up some cocktails and turn on the wide screen to some NCIS and put a Chuck Berry record on that stereo set ’cause we’re goin’ out with a buzz in our heads and a smile on our faces.

What’s so bad about feelin’ good for the rest of your miserable little life?

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I’m Here For You

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A lot of people blog because they have a big ego and think tens of thousands of people out there are going to hang on their every word.  They want people to nod their heads for every opinion they write about.  They want comments about how brilliant and how oh so right they are.  They think everyone wants to look into their private psychoses and their dreary website and affirm their useless digital scribblings.  It’s all about me, me, me…

I-love-youWell this blog is different, it’s all about you, you, you.  I’m here for you.  I’ve got your back.  What other blogger warns you off some posts while putting others out there that you know will improve your life?  Don’t some posts seem to have been written just for you personally?  Huh?  Do you think I’d sit here punching this keyboard if I didn’t feel an urgent social responsibility?  I’ve got tons of episodes of NCIS on the DVR and I could be parking my lazy ass on the divan and enjoying the best TV program ever made.  But no, I’m here trying to improve your miserable life, a complete stranger.  That’s how big I am; a giving person, a servant.

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Where You’ll End Up

Oh sure I have to use tough love sometimes and point out the deficiencies in you and your world but you know it’s for your own good.  I don’t like doing it but somebody has to or you are going to end up on the trash heap of humanity.  I worry about you all the time, especially the 50% of you that are below average.  I stay up late trying to think of something that is going to stick in your little pea brain, that can pull you up from the desperate and hopeless state you are currently in.

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Fairies and Rainbows

I try to temper these intense self-improvement posts with other posts of whimsy and carefree fun that will brighten your otherwise dreary day.  I add the occasional important current event because I know you haven’t touched a newspaper in years and when you did all you cared about was what the Kardashians were doing.  See these are all for your own good too.  I spend a lot of time each and every day thinking about how to get through to you and improve your life just a little.  I put all my needs aside to serve you, dear reader.

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I’m Here for You!

Well I just wanted you to know that when the chips are down, like they always are for you, you can count on me.  I wanted you to know I’m making more than a D minus effort for you.  Whatever disaster comes into your world I’ll be putting all my resources into how best to deal with it and keep you from circling the drain.  Think of me as the FEMA of bloggers, but in a better way that actually arrives in time and helps the afflicted.

Remember I’m here if you need me and I’m ready to make time for you day or night.  Oh, and like I’ve told you before, lowered expectations are the key to a less than miserable life so just expect the worst and everything will be all right.

Pessimism

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As I said in my next to last post you are probably becoming by now the poster boy or girl for this blog. If you can send a picture of you in your new carefree, and most of all, leisurely lifestyle I might feature it here, anonymously of course (see below for what you should really expect to happen).

I really struggled with the title for this post.  Should I call it pessimism, optimism, hope, or despair because we’re going to hit all of these here?  I decided on the straight forward approach instead of the facetious one, again for reasons that will become evident.

But onward in our journey to nirvana. The subject for this day is Pessimism, pure and simple, and I’m going to show you how to apply this little word to your outlook about everything. It’s so simple: always expect the worst. That’s it, see what I mean? We’re trending towards the Zen of life. Life is so simple really that the truths about it are almost self-evident, but really expect life to be so complicated that you are never going to understand anything. There, we’ve already applied it.  Always expect to be disappointed. This is the only way to never be let down: always expect to be disappointed, then in the rare circumstance that something good does happen, you’ll be ecstatic, however when the more probable opposite occurs you won’t EVER be disappointed.

What a great way to live. If you can apply this along with the Dminus principle (see my earlier post) then life will become unbearable but essentially worry free.

Let’s see if we can find how you can apply this to a more practical situation. At work, always assume, even with a lack of evidence, that your co-workers are sniveling, back stabbing, over-ambitious weasels who are going to take the credit for all your work and get promoted a lot faster although they never deserved it. Now you cannot imagine a day when you are going to be let down in your expectations by the behavior of your co-workers. In the rare event that you are in a meeting and someone says: “Oh no, I didn’t do all this Shirley did some of it,” you are going to be on cloud nine. I would say happy enough to take the rest of the day off, go to a bar, and call in sick the next morning (again, see the Dminus principle). If the opposite happens and they take all the credit for what was mostly your work, well you expected as much and can’t really be disappointed. Either way, you weren’t disappointed. Voilà, life is actually the dreary drudge you thought it would be.  This applies to everything in your pathetic life:  your spouse, your job, your physical fitness plan (again, see earlier posts), your health, your finances, your family, your so-called friends and on and on.  The areas for application are endless.

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However, there are a number of hazards in this lifestyle: optimists and an attitude of hopefulness. Optimists are to be avoided at all costs. Assume they are possessed by a demon that wants to knock you off your currently successful downward slide and take advantage of you at the same time. They are never to be trusted. They will get you to read books by Norman Vincent Peale, Tony Robbins, and their ilk. They will tell you about the failed philosophy of positive thinking and that you are a good person with talents that are yet untapped, and we all know none of this is true as shown by past experience. What you do know is that they are waiting to swindle you and put you on a path that will leave you circling the drain without hope.

Which brings me to my second hazard: hope. Never ever hope for anything to get better. It won’t and you already know this. Hope leads to the ultimate disappointment unless it is hope for the worst to happen. If anything gives you even an inkling that things are going to work out, get as far away from it as possible, mentally and physically.  Again, avoid at all costs.

I apply this principle of unbroken pessimism as often as possible in my own life. If you look at some of my earlier posts, I expected the worst outcome in both the Dunbar and stock market situations. Was I disappointed? No way the worst outcome I had expected happened. I could go along in my already depressed state knowing that only something worse could still happen.  There you have it.

Oh, and have a lousy day.

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In my next to last post I told you I was going to tell you about Chicago Nice. Well I didn’t and you were on the edge of your seat waiting for what I was going to say. Now you’re disappointed. See how it would have been so much better to assume I was lying or forgetful and not have anticipated that I would reveal this other principle of a nirvana-like life.  I promise I’ll get to it in a later post, but you know what?  Don’t be disappointed if I don’t.