In praise of pessimism

An optimist can't be a meliorist? Well, some of us meliorists still harbor optimistic tendencies.

"But really, the sweet-smelling grass is beneath our hoofs right now: what is required is that we take pleasure in what is available to us... Unfortunately, in our gastro-fixated culture, the epicurean is associated with fancy concoctions of wheatgrass, rather than the stuff growing close to hand. We need to redress this balance and understand that once the basic necessities of life are accounted for, all the rest can be creative and even wilful.
The optimist can never embrace this perspective, driven as she is by an inchoate need that can always be shaped by others so as to tantalise her. The optimist – again, paradoxically – lives in fear of a future that she endeavours, futilely, to control. The optimists can never be that most desirable of things: a meliorist, because every setback is necessarily a disaster. For the pessimist, it’s simply a matter of shit happens, but until it does, make hay..."

Will Self, In praise of pessimism