I Walk The Line

I think of myself as a realist. I’m not a pessimist nor an optimist.

I want so much to think the best, brightest, most salubrious outcomes will prevail but I’m not inclined to blindly buy into my hopes. At the same time knee-jerk pessimism is lazy fucking thinking. It’s a great way to hasten the bad end that I already fear.

I walk the line or try to anyway.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
~ Oscar Wilde

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

I wish to weep
but sorrow is
stupid.
I wish to believe
but belief is a
graveyard.
~ Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

If you think this Universe is bad, you should see some of the others.
~ Philip K. Dick

If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence, or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?
~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
~ William Butler Yeats

The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it he knows too little.
~ Mark Twain

Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us.
~ Stephen Colbert

One can only tolerate the absolute idiocy of Man for so long before bringing out the bat.
~ Dean Hale

Life isn't all fricasseed frogs and eel pie.
~ C.S. Lewis

I can't be a pessimist because I am alive. To be a pessimist means that you have agreed that human life is an academic matter. So, I am forced to be an optimist. I am forced to believe that we can survive, whatever we must survive.
~ James Baldwin

There are moments when everything goes well; don't be frightened, it won't last.
~ Jules Renard

Life is a huge farce, and the advantage of possessing a sense of humour is that it enables one to defy fate with mocking laughter.
~ George Gissing

My friend Mark sent this (at right) to me yesterday. Timely. I needed to read this. I know that part of my current sadness is rooted in the fear of my upcoming proton radiation. Part is the gaslit, obscene horrors of the Republi/Fascist party and witnessing how many people eagerly gobble up every last steaming pile of manipulative pachyderm shit as though it was all dark chocolate cake with cream cheese filling. And then there’s the war in Ukraine.

Where’s the light at the end of the goddamn tunnel?! Turn that fucker on NOW please.

Also, I need some cake. NOW!