I like to think I'm not a pessimistic person but it might be hard to refute that when the few things I'm optimistic about are consistent failures. And yet, I continue to be optimistic about them. I suspect that's what optimism is though, a kind of acceptable insanity. Thinking that just because it didn't work the last nine times it's going to work this time. This time when I go to the company website and click on the icon for the one I work in it's going to go to our page even though it didn't work last time and hasn't worked at any point since they "fixed" the website months ago (by hiring some jerkoff quack who couldn't even manage as good a website as I made in beginning html in highschool). And yet, no one questions when I do things like this. It doesn't work and hasn't since it was "fixed" months ago and yet none of my coworkers so much as question when I try it yet again.
The thing that I'm worst (or possible best) at being optimistic about is conversations with idiots. I might hear someone say something illogical on the bus or at work and I feel this uncontrollable urge to make the world a better place and correct them. This never, ever works. Idiots seems to be strangely proud of their lack of intelligence and resist any concept or idea not their own at every turn. They have all these so-called reasons and arguments for why their flawed view-point is the correct one and even if you painstakingly over-turn every single one of their bias statistics and "sources" they'll just say "I don't think you're right" and deny everything.
A striking example of this optimism is a conversation I had with a woman a couple weeks ago. It was around ninety degrees out and I had just walked the twenty minutes it takes me to get to the bus depot. Maybe if it hadn't been so hot I wouldn't have had the conversation. The woman and I were both waiting to be allowed onto the air-conditioned bus when the driver disembarked and went to unload a person in a wheelchair. The woman (whose four-year-old was standing holding her hand) cursed loudly and colorfully and growled that the driver could have at least let people on out of the heat before he went and did that. It's a company safety policy to get all of the passengers off before letting anyone else on. I told her as much and she brought her kid (who said nothing during the entire exchange and seemed fine) into the argument and said that it was too hot for children to stand out in the sun while the bus driver helped some person in a wheelchair off. She spiced this sentence up with several choice adjectives you'll never hear on the radio as well. I suggested that swearing wasn't going to solve anything and she gave me a dirty look and actually said that it couldn't hurt anything. I assume she meant "provided that swearing in front of your small child and acting like the world revolves around you isn't hurting anything".
Another wonderful person was a lady who came into the store after we had to kick out her three unattended children because her four-year-old had gotten into the adult how-to sex books. She muttered, as she walked past the desk, wondering out-loud if children were no longer allowed in stores. I suggested that if she had a problem maybe we could help her with it. She glared and stormed out of the store. I wanted to tell her that last I checked unattended children weren't allowed much of anywhere and only in part because people might steal them but I managed to resist.
And I know that arguing with them will only frustrate me but I'm sure the next time I hear someone complaining about the people who voted in such-and-such politician I'm going to think: "No, this time I'll set them straight. If I just speak clearly and concisely they'll see the error of their ways."
