Years ago, I played Nellie Forbush in South Pacific. It was an easy role for me to act: I pretty much embody Rodger and Hammerstein's cock-eyed optimist ("When the sky is a bright canary yellow, I forget every cloud I've ever seen...") But lately, well, it's been challenging. I still see that bright sky, but dark clouds huddle threateningly at the edge of my vision. It creates a tension-- a sort of emotional dissonance--that tugs at me. Hummingbirds and hurricanes. Bach and Bundy. The united and divided states of America.
But this week I read "The 'melancholic joy' of living in our beautiful, brutal world" by Brian Treanor, which begins by saying, "It's a challenging time to be an optimist." Mr. Trainor addresses the issue of optimism vs. pessimism, and holds that we don't need to choose. "If a clear-eyed honesty about things brings an end to naive or innocent happiness," he writes, "it opens up the possibility for something more mature. Humans, so far as we can tell, are the only beings who, in addition to experiencing things as good in relation to our own desires, interests and goals, can also appreciate them as good-in-themselves, good regardless of their relationship to us, good independent of our very being. As a consequence, we have the possibility of looking at the world and being grateful for it – not pleased by it or happy about it, but thankful."
Since reading Treanor's article, the tension I felt has been replaced by a fragile peace. I don't have to choose. I can see the yellow sky and the dark clouds and the beauty in the contrast. I hope you can arrive at a place like that, too.