Iain,
Oh, no; just a pretty flat jokey-definition I heard a long time ago, and have
only quoted two or three times in 25 years.
I dunno how the two polar types would look to one who is neither, in general.
But to one who is awakened, we can take examples: The optimist might look like
someone who is un-necessarily planning to have experiences of a nature
pre-determined to be acceptable. As such, optimism is a limitation of
possibilities and even of surprises of all types. And there's more that can be
said, but let's move on. The pessimist might appear un-necessarily down in the
dumps and grumpy, carrying a residue of disappointing experiences into the
present as a dark or wet shroud, screening the present moment, and imaginarily
making experience conform with expectation, as the optimist does.
Now, the awakened person will grant that optimists and pessimists are both
missing the present reality to some extent, or to a large extent. By having
expectations or an "attitude", and by putting a gloss on reality, the small
mind is covering and coloring "Just THIS!", or direct experience.
The awakened person also cuts the optimists and pessimists lots of slack: they
are both sleep-walkers in the awakened person's eye, or they are pretending,
and playing a role perfectly. The awakened person will also grant that the
optimist or pessimist may not be consistently so -- qua optimist or pessimist
-- and will grant, too, that if such people practice, they too can awaken, and
leave their mind-glosses behind. I think that, before awakening, everyone is
somewhere on a scale from optimist to pessimist, and their placement there
varies with time and circumstances.
It's not the "answers" that are blowin' in the wind, it's the people.
We have an "app" for that (to fix it). It's called Zen practice. ;-)
--Joe
> "iain" wrote:
>
> Is that a pessimist's evaluation of an optimist? I wonder what both look like
> to someone who is neither.
>
> "Joe" wrote:
> >
> > Iain,
> >
> > Dunno; but they say an Optimist is a guy who puts sour milk back in the
> > fridge and says, "Maybe it will be fresh tomorrow". ;-)
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