You do things
You have expectations
Your expectations are either realistic — or not
Optimistic is not realistic
Pessimistic is not realistic
You do things
You don’t have expectations — because you are engaging in NEW practises, you are exploring
You are optimistic
You can’t be realistic — because you don’t have a clue what shall emerge
You can’t be pessimistic — because then it wouldn’t make any sense (to do it)
You do things
You have expectations
Your expectations are NOT realistic — but optimistic
“Things will go well”
You are delusional
The only place for optimism is upon the unknown
Everything you DO know — you want to be as ruthlessly realistic, calculating, cold, as you can
Now, there’s not so much you do know, mind you
You don’t know when your day comes
You don’t know when you get lucky (obviously luck is real)
You don’t know when you get unlucky
You don’t know how the world works, really
There’s not so much you do know
So let’s be optimistic!
If you don’t know it — might as well be optimistic
So that you actually want to DO something
But then there’s this everything in life that you can actually measure
What can you measure?
Your INPUT
Your daily input
You can measure it with utmost precision
And you can measure some of the output
You can’t predict the future, you can’t encapsulate the relation between your input and output in a perfect, tidy formula
But you can approximate some output; Especially short-term
You can measure some output and you can measure all your input
…instead you are optimistic
=delusional
There’s no place for it
You want to be ruthlessly concrete
You don’t want to be vague
Men waste their lives on “vague”
There’s no time
No time for “vague”
There is everything you don’t know, everything you can’t predict
You can’t afford to also neglect what you CAN control
I do want you to be optimistic in the face of the fathomless
I do want you to immerse yourself in the unknown
I do want you to unravel the unseen
I do want you to fall freely into that exploration
I just want you to ALSO be REALISTIC with EVERYTHING ELSE
EVERYTHING that you can control
There really is no other choice, if you think about it
When you see a dog, you don’t pretend it’s a horse, or a bird
A spade is a fucking spade
Truth is not a choice, it’s a fact
Alas in our daily lives, we’re so optimistic, we refuse to see things for what they are
And we refuse to see our utter stupidity
We take this banality of optimism as a pass for deluding ourselves
Please commit to objectivity
Please be ruthless
You don’t have to know much — just make sure that what you DO know — you DO know
You don’t have to be crazy fastidious; Control-obsession is another form of self-delusion — deluding oneself with hope of having control
I just want you to control what you DO control
And let go of everything else
And let go into this wonderful exploration
But only after you claimed responsibility for what you do control, do know