PESSIMISM
Pessimism is literally defined as gloominess,
lack of hope, cynicism, despair, depression, distrust and even fatalism. A
pessimist is therefore a cynic, a prophet of doom, a gloom merchant or fatalist.
Long back I read an article by
Thomas Scott Lowden who described pessimism as mental, moral, or physical
health or all. According to him
pessimism inevitably leads to some form of ill health, and ill health is an open
way to pessimism.
For the pessimists, says Lowden, there
is no life-expansive process. The life movement is ever contracting. They lack the spirit of elasticity and
accommodation, experience no spontaneous outbursts of joy, exhilaration,
exuberance of the life current issuing from surplus strength, overflowing
vivacity, and euphoric buoyancy. They are never conscious of a background
feeling of naïve, animal life. They consume themselves in snaps, snarls and
bites.
For them t here are no sunny days,
green fields, meadows, clear skies, cool streams, shady forests, and songs of
birds. They think the past was is dark, the present is miserable, and the
future will be gloomy.
Not only this, so long as pessimists allow
themselves to feel discouraged and depressed, life continues to go wrong with
them. Their pessimism drives away their from them their friends, kith and kin, because
they find themselves unable to endure their sour faces and crabbed words. Their behavior can even become a handicap in
their business, professional or social life because everybody prefers to
traffic with people who are of cheerful nature , rather than with those who
continue to pull long faces.
It is possible that pessimists themselves are puzzled and do not understand why
they are not cheerful. In such a case,
let us recall the description of pessimism given by Lowden. According to him ill-health is an open way to
pessimism. Somewhere in the body of a pessimist,
there may be a faulty condition that has caused a faulty mental attitude. The
trouble may be in the stomach or in any other part of the body. So it is
advisable to go to a medical expert and
give him/her a chance t to discover what is wrong.
28th January 2020 G. R. KANWAL
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