Pessimism

Notes

Claim

Pessimism as opposed to Optimism is choosing to believe outcomes can improve through action means that we give more of our attention to negative things.

Explanation

When we are wearing dark-colored glasses, no wonder everything looks bleak. The way we view the world affects how we experience it. We tune ourselves to negativity which captures most of our attention, and then becomes a Harmful actions reinforce themselves through self-perpetuating feedback loops because we only consume harmful information, which leads us to isolate ourselves further from others, which increases the suffering and negativity in our lives. Output quality depends on input quality.

So why are we pessimistic? Pessimism is "helpful" because it gives us the illusion of control. We imagine the worst possible scenario, because if we can handle that, we could handle everything. It reduces Uncertainty creates anxiety when knowledge and control are incomplete. If the worst happen, we were "always right", "we saw it coming", we weren't caught off guard.

Why it matters

Examples

Supporters

Opposers

We believe that the future will be worse, or that there is nothing we can do to change it. Pessimism often leads to Helplessness is perceiving no control over circumstances and outcomes because why even bother if we can't do anything, or even if we try then other people, god, luck or nature would ruin it for us. It can also lead to Depression is chronic despair from helplessness and lost meaning because the negativity eats us from within, it can crowd out any feelings of happiness and meaning.

Open questions

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Overview

🔼Topic:: Inner Critic and Self-Perception ↩️Origin:: 🔗Link::