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Walking the line between skepticism and optimism
Why they’re both important and how they can happily coexist
Have you ever looked back at social media posts, things you wrote or read and loved and shared, to see in hindsight a consistent common thread?
For me, it’s an evolving skepticism toward just about everything that most people take as given — like the belief that cheapest is best. And capitalism, which is now very trendy as a topic of discourse.
I was writing about my capitalistic doubts six years ago, though at the time I didn’t realize I was being critical of the system itself, but rather of marketing and media, which are levers of control within the umbrella of capitalism.
This was the beginning of my skepticism.
Fast forward a few years, and there are so many moments that I can remember thinking:
“jeez, things are so goddamn bleak, how does any rational, critical, thinking person not get crushed by the weight of all this existential cognitive dissonance?”
Those were some dark moments, but what came out of them was a newfound appreciation for and practice of optimism.
