Optimism and Pessimism

I wrote something on my other blog about some recent writings on Conrad Black. Best quote in the article is the final word's of Conrad's father: "Life is hell," he told his son as they awaited the doctor. "Most people are bastards, and everything is bullshit." 

 I can be slightly more positive. I recently heard something on the radio about Pessimists just being Optimists with more knowledge. I hope that there is more to life than that. This is where my human ability to believe in two opposite things at once comes into play. I truly think that is truly the biggest and most important human trait. We all know that human life is bullshit. 

One has only to gaze once at the clear night sky to realize that all that we covet and desire amounts "to a hill of beans in this crazy world" as Rick in Casablanca said. 

On a conscious level I know that life is terrible and nothing under the sun is with fair or unfair. Things just are. But that does not mean that we can't just go on pretending that what we do has meaning. That is fine as long we also realize that all human consciousness is just a form of pretending. Human life has meaning because that is what humans believe in. We are human so we act as humans do. 

So it goes.