Pessimism and Optimism

#Pessimism and Optimism#

Regarding solutions for pessimism, there are many popular answers. So let’s first set some basic standards for potentially qualified solutions:

1) Marginal utility cannot diminish. That is, the solution cannot gradually lose effectiveness.

If it diminishes gradually, as the diminishing trend is noticed, it will in fact lose effectiveness the instant the diminishing trend is noticed.

This is because pessimists are extremely sensitive - they are already highly vigilant for any worsening trends, and will quickly see any deterioration as an omen of collapse. Therefore, if a method of maintaining optimism and avoiding pessimism is assumed to have diminishing utility, even if it only has a downward trending phase, it will greatly undermine its actual meaning.

Pessimists won’t wait until things get worse day after day until they can’t physically bear it anymore before falling into despair. Rather, in a very short period after “things have just started going downhill and they can’t find any possibility of it getting better,” they will fall into despair. They are so fragile in the face of this despair that even when things are still very far from utter hopelessness, they may feel they have already reached the end.

The problem with such methods is not just that they are not effective enough, but that they can have long-term, holistic harm - like a game with only three lives, for most people the number of times they can “switch to an optimistic mindset” is very limited. Often after switching two or three times without gaining some solid method, people will develop a nihilistic attitude toward optimism itself.

They may even abandon hope itself - "I don’t want to be made optimistic again, because having hope and then having it crushed is too painful.

I’d rather stay in my familiar pain, at least I’m used to it and it won’t feel as painful. Every time I’m fooled by some means into becoming optimistic, I have to expend huge amounts of energy. If I save this emotional energy and just use it to endure my habitual pessimism, maybe I can last a little longer…”

2. It must be sustainable. That means it can have no fatal cumulative side effects, nor rely on unsustainable resources.

There are two kinds of fatal side effects.

The first is physiological harm, especially harm that leads to cognitive impairment.

Means of achieving human optimism that cause cognitive impairment are, in general, drugs.

Drugs in fact are just stimulants that induce the body to secrete endogenous opioid substances. Hard drugs can temporarily destroy a person’s pessimism with overwhelming force, but they do so by irreversibly damaging the person.

If one does not directly take drugs, but instead uses various means to stimulate one’s own physiology to internally secrete opioid substances, then these stimulating means are essentially just soft drugs.

Using this method to resist pessimism actually has the same problem of diminishing marginal utility - if the dosage is not increased but just maintained, its effect will still gradually diminish over time. Whether it is bodybuilding, gaming, sex, or career success, if used to combat pessimistic tendencies, they will all be subject to the first taboo, requiring you to gradually increase the dosage.

The emergence of pessimism is cost-free, but these “medicines” are expensive yet diminishing in efficacy.

Either they become too expensive for you to afford an adequate “effective dosage,” thus reverting you back to pessimism; or they are too cheap, so you constantly increase the dosage, exceeding what you can physiologically tolerate. Therefore, such means can only be emergency stopgap measures to buy time, not ultimate solutions.

The vast majority of people rely on this approach, they just keep “switching medicines.”

The second is cognitive dysfunction resulting from inability to adapt to the laws of nature. This refers to self-deception based on disregard for natural laws. It also makes one’s future extremely dangerous. The laws of nature are impartial - they do not exist for Yao or perish for Jie. No matter what kind of ideological system makes people ignore or distort natural laws, makes people directly determine that facts do not exist, in order to obtain temporary optimism, we still do not think it is a viable option, at least at the technical level.

As for the problem of “relying on unsustainable resources,” the principle is simple - if something can save you and seems to have no side effects, but then it will be gone in a couple days, the disruption of that supply is a huge threat to you, enough in itself to cause depression. If it is not a foreseeable certain disruption, but could disappear at any time, then the threat to a person is even greater. Even if it later turns out that it was not actually disrupted, but was just temporarily suspended and then resumed, it still causes one to be in long-term anxiety over the possibility of its sudden disruption.

For example, someone you consider your savior.

Relying on a specific person, when that person disappoints you, you will fall into an even deeper abyss. And how can a person not disappoint you? People cannot save people, nor should they expect salvation from others. A large part of depression is actually a punitive mechanism set up by God for the arrogantly self-aggrandized and the idolaters. Those arrogant enough to believe they can save others end up harming the very people they intend to save. And those who dare to rely on salvation from others will surely fall into an even deeper abyss.

Think for yourself - isn’t this how you have stepped down into your current depths? - One by one, the people you placed great hopes in have greatly disappointed you. Not just small frustrations, but illusions shattered, revealing sin, foolishness and indifference. You thought they were bodhisattvas, but discovered they were more like demons.

If this is the case, then relying again on sages to seek salvation, isn’t that leaning toward Tiger Mountain?

This newly appointed living savior has to not disappear or disillusion you for a lifetime in order to continually give you more courage to live another day. Every move concerns life and death. If this person doesn’t know, that’s one thing, but if they do know, they may be flattered at first, feeling honored, but over time, they will come to resent you to the bone.

Believe me, no one can afford the price to bear such pressure. In the end, it will inevitably develop to the point of “as long as you don’t abandon me, I’m willing to do anything, even give up all my freedom and personal wealth,” and so on.

Once it reaches this point, idol worship has formed, and there will be no good outcome, only mutual disappointment, resentment and grievous self-injury to end it all.

Countless parents and children become enemies, friends turn against each other, teachers and students break bonds of kindness, husbands and wives sever ties of loveness - all stem from this.

This path is not viable.

The path to salvation must have nothing to do with any living person, it cannot rely on how a certain living person acts, otherwise this uncertainty and fragility will cost you your life.