the euphoria of pessimism

Self-Help. The moment you think you’re a pessimist is the moment you cease to be one.

Pessimism is the most generous of thoughts; it includes everyone, if only by virtue of their existing. ~ * ~

Sometimes I’m asked if I’m a pessimist. I need to find a clever answer to this question. Or make up a good joke. But the truth is that I am a pessimist… except when writing about pessimism. I’ve managed to make pessimism a form of therapy.

in writing, I feel a strange euphoria… there are so many ways to say nothing.

If enthusiasm is the weakness of pessimists, then procrastination is the weakness of optimists. Stanisław Lec: “Optimists and pessimists differ only on the date of the end of the world.”

There is a special kind of Purgatory that involves waiting for something not to happen.

pessimism also has its own ontological argument: existence is that beyond which nothing worse can be conceived.

The more I talk to people, the less I see the point in conversation. I’ve often been in the midst of a conversation and have suddenly, unwillingly, been extracted mysteriously from it, as if I were observing the whole thing with a strange sense of detached melancholy, like an out-of-body experience.

“Only optimists commit suicide” (Cioran).

Morbidity. I used to be afraid of exercising. That was before I was dealing with these health problems. Now I’m afraid of not exercising. The fear is the same.