The Optimist Club

I’ve been sneered at, derided for my optimism. My generally upbeat outlook is not blind to reality – nope, not at all. I'm subject to pits and valleys like everyone else but, as Chumbawamba Tubthumped, I get knocked down, but I get up again. You are never gonna keep me down. Like Henry Rollins, my optimism wears heavy boots and is loud. And I’m not alone.

Will the U.S. survive Trump? I’ve no choice but to hope and believe that we will AND work towards that end.

With one eye still shut, my balance is worse than ever so I can’t go to tomorrow’s March for Science. This gives me a fat sad. I could really use the hope boost that these large gatherings of the likeminded provide but I just wouldn’t be able to get around. Felicity will send me pics. That’ll help. If you’re going to a march in your town, can you send me snaps too? donna dot maderer at gmail dot com is where to send and thank you!

Meantime, there's the monthly letter and postcard writing night which the #Resist: Quincy Meetup group runs. I'll go to that and see how else I can get involved.

As long as there was coffee in the world, how bad could things be?
~ Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes

The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.
~ James Branch Cabell, The Silver Stallion 

I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.
~ Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: Autobiography of Nelson Mandela 
 
Ya know, if Mandela, with all he endured, remained up, surely I can to!

Hope – George Frederic Watts

 TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
~ Howard Zinn

Tell it Howie!

Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.
~ Noam Chomsky

YES! THIS!!! 24/7 abyss-braining isn't just blindingly dull, it's counterproductive.

A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it.
~ George Bernard Shaw

There is some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for.
~ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

This is one of Linda Baker-Cimini's and I LOVE it! Her drawings totally speak to me.