Sunny Ways - Aug 3 2022

 

Sunny Ways

Aug 3 2022

He called himself a born optimist.

If there even is such a thing,

  —  hard-wired

into your DNA  —

then what does it say about me?

Because I've always questioned my misanthropy,

tendency to catastrophize,

tunnel vision

that everything's destined to go

from bad to worse.

So am I off the hook?

That despite my best efforts

there never was a chance

I could have boot-strapped myself

into sunny ways.

A congenital pessimist

who was born this way.

By nature

I'm a trip-wire, on high alert,

prepared

for the snake in the grass,

the leopard stalking

with patient padded stealth.

From a long line of survivors

who also feared the worst.

Whose positive friends

  —  who smiled brightly

and had faith in beneficent gods  —

were devoured by lions

or left foaming and writhing

as the venom entered their hearts.

So there is much to be said

for pessimists.

Nevertheless, I envy my optimist friends,

who somehow get through life

thinking positive thoughts

and expecting much the best.

While it falls to me

to protect them from themselves.

It's called “defensive pessimism”. And this reasoning probably explains why it is hard-wired, and why it persists . . . even though it doesn't make us happy. (On the other hand, rarely disappointed; often vindicated; and when we're wrong, far more delighted than if we'd routinely expected such an outcome!) Because pessimists survive. Because pessimist live long enough to reproduce. Because those born with this dark temperament have offspring who are likely born the same. Every tribe depended on their pessimists. They helped everyone stay alive.

Does anyone else write poems about evolutionary biology?!! Hard to be both poetic and get the facts right!