It's All a Sliding Scale...

Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Is the glass half full or half empty? Or do you just have the wrong sized glass?

I tend to lean toward optimism. Or at least I did. Though I generally am a realist with optimistic tendencies. I'm not solidly one or the other, I can argue both. Sort of like my religious views. I'm an agnostic with atheistic tendencies.

But I realized this weekend that what I am really depends on who I am comparing too. Speaking about politics especially. Friday I had coffee with a friend and in that relationship I'm the pessimist. Sunday we had dinner with other friends and I was the one who sounded more like an optimist. It was kind of wild.

My stance isn't different, but the people I was talking to were different.

Now, to be fair, I wasn't much of an optimist, mostly the difference between believing there will be an election or not having an election. I think we will have one, and I think it will be a real battle to get the results counted. With one friend that makes me pessimistic, with another, optimistic. And to be really fair I'm pretty sure my one friend is joking when she says there won't be an election at all.

But in today's day and age pretty sure it's a joke doesn't mean that it's not a fear we all have of it becoming reality.

And that's kind of sad really.

Or really sad, kind of.

It's fucking messed up is what it is.

But it's par for the course right now. We live in a time where things we would have dismissed out of hand now seem possible. And sometimes not just possible but probable.

It's not my favorite.

I'd like to get back to being more optimistic. I'd like to go back to my realist tendencies not sounding so damn pessimistic. I'd like to go back to a time where a joke was easily recognizable as a joke and not a fear spoken out loud with a laugh.

Does that make me optimistic or pessimistic?