Rainbows and Unicorns - July 18 2023

 

Rainbows and Unicorns

July 18 2023

I envy the optimists.

They beam, bright-eyed

and hold their heads high,

striding heedlessly

over uneven ground.

Yet while I make my way

peering down

for potholes and stumbling blocks

they never seem to fall,

or if they do

pick themselves up

and carry on, undaunted.

But vigilance

exacts its price.

Worry

is hardly worth it,

when so much can go wrong

but more often does not.

Me, a hard-headed realist,

practical, sensible

prudently defensive,

who is wary of bad endings

and has no faith

heaven will favour me.

Up against the blessed,

those dreamy believers

who must imagine the gods

smile down on them

from candy floss clouds.

Who are irrepressibly drawn

to a brightly lit horizon

at the end of a yellow brick road,

where rainbows and unicorns

invitingly beckon,

and everything ends

well.

Envy, as unbecoming an emotion as it is. Yet the poem concludes (and, considering the title, I guess begins!) with a tone of passive-aggressive derision. So I clearly have mixed feelings. Yes, it must be easier sailing through life as a bright-eyed optimist. But then, I'm proud of the hard-headed realism of my harsh worldview: no sugar-coating; no believing in something just because it feels better.

Are we born like this? If I wanted, could I choose to be an optimist? I think not. I think I was a pessimist from birth; hard-wired that way. Evolution might explain this. Because those tribes in which some members are thinking ahead and considering all the pitfalls would have a survival advantage, and therefore it's more likely these genes would be passed on. So there is a selection pressure that favours pessimism. But this sees pessimism as a positive attribute: defensive pessimism (as the poem says, prudently defensive), which allows one to be prepared for any and all eventualities.