In defence of Pessimism: Experiencing life as an act of living (I)

- Nothingness, non-existence, black-emptiness...
              - What did you say?
              - Oh, I was just planning my future.
                                Woody Allen (Love and Death/1975)

We are currently living in troubled times...as though something that is supposed to have gone right, has gone wrong. I would like to reverse this equation. Nothing was entirely supposed to go right and so, nothing has particularly gone wrong. 

                    Alain de Botton

As time passes I become closer and closer to a pessimistic view of life. I, like most of us, have a grim view of life that bear upon which bad prevails good though we have some sense of enjoyment when we experience it.  To me, as it happens to others, the difficulty of life manifests itself in two separate but interrelated parts; the inner circle and the outer circle. The inner circle itself can be separated into two as well; body structural and body personal; On the one hand, by Woody Allen's words; ''life is divided into the horrible and miserable. Horrible is like...blind people, crippled. And the miserable..rest of us; You should be thankful that you are miserable.’’ That refers to body structural which means things are hard to change. Personal; as a human being, we are shaped by the education we get, the environment we live in etc. Here the psychological issues are at stake, what we understand from life, (for ex. technological) changes that happen around us, love and death. On the other hand, the outer circle is the global system we live in contains states, neoliberal economy, class struggles etc. The reasons for which we may fall in despair and lose our hope materially are rooted mainly in these structured palpable things.

My views here do not reflect the philosophical notions, though covertly entail some views. Rather it is a personal view that comes into being from my survival in life that includes mainly love, education, and experiencing life as an act of living. However, for the sake of this discussion, it still is needed to dash off the definition of it and differentiate it from the other concepts such as nihilism, scepticism, fatalism, despair, and so on. But as matter of fact, I must say that in some ways I am/can be an object of nihilism. 

Pessimism first of all means to accept that there are ups and downs in life. As a stance, it believes ‘bad prevails good’. Paul Prescott, by saying it is always about outcomes, adds an additional element; ‘one is personally invested.  Personally invested here means that there is certain harm or loss the person experience. So as a definition of the term, pessimism must include this harm or loss before other concepts. It is different from nihilism because it accepts the values and believes it can be achieved through steady actions; ’Experience may defeat this expectation, but the pessimist will see this as a matter of luck, or exception to what reasonably could be expected. For the nihilist, on the other hand, there is no room for good fortune.’  It differs from scepticism because it is not 'restricted to denial of the positive and here there is an emotional commitment'. It can lead to despair, but unlike from it, there is still some hope in pessimism. 

We are going through such a period in life that, at least in our own society, we are inclined to describe someone who says they are optimistic and happy as immoral. Now, besides social codes, saying that my work is fine or everything is perfect has become a situation that starts to bother us, even if we are probably happy for the happiness of the other. Although health and living standards have increased compared to the previous century, we believe that unhappiness dominates our life, and the bitter truth strikes us. There is no linear progress. Progress does not mean happiness. It doesn't mean it will bring happiness. Death is inevitable. Conflict and war is our destiny. Love is an illusion. Relationships are not without the flaws of being human. Love can't cope with our personalities. Being sad, among other things, is the inevitable result of the environment in which technological progress transforms our social relations in the modern world. The main reason why I specifically mention this is that for someone like me who constantly makes retrospective comparisons, I fell into a practical nihilistic emptiness by desiring the previous period, which began to spread very slowly in a certain period and in a certain geography or social relations (say it Western Europe and North America). 

In short, life is full of suffering, loneliness, deprivation, pain, and loss. The pursuit of happiness and happiness is of course possible, but what makes all this despair possible is the presence of death. Then the will to live appears as an obligation to escape from all other unhappy experiences, especially death. Facts are tiring. Being morally conditioned and the state of consciousness takes this problem to another dimension; “Too much reality is too much to bear.” When this happens, we are content to say as Dr House said, "I am not fine as in fine, but fine as in you do not have to worry about me."

You don't need to experience the world to understand that it's not a good place and that progress is probably curvy. The books already say that. A believer also has to believe that he was not sent to this world for happiness and that his happiness will be in heaven. Isn't it that religious books and mythology constantly talk about a saviour, since we cannot achieve happiness on our own? In my personal experience, the moment that I consciously remember is the fact that by living every subsequent year I saw that by many, including myself, the happiness comments posted at the New Year, did not bring happiness.  As things are not getting better, the bad is also like getting more wins on the good right now. The most basic visible result is global warming and climate change, which, aside from its material consequences, has already begun to throw us into despair. Even experiencing the seasons, which is a human need, is something we have not felt for a long time.

Happiness is more about experiences of distraction now, accepting the negativity of things, rather than a good experience. We can escape from existential problems. By distracting ourselves and living better than the experiences of unhappiness.

When we start life with such a judgment, other problems will not surprise us. Seneca says people get angry for a very simple reason; optimism. For this reason, people should be aware of the structural conditions and limitations they are in, and should not be seduced by the slogans of the modern world in order not to get lost in despair even if the struggle is not abandoned. Ultimately, this shouldn't put us in a nihilistic emptiness, because values definitely exist and are the tools we need to build on the path to happiness.

References

1. For all basic discussions and quotations on pessimism;  Paul Prescott (2012), What Pessimism is, Journal of Philosophical Research, pp. 337-356.

2. For distraction; Woody Allen, Origins Podcasts

3. Alain de Botton on Pessimism