Hope is not optimism

  1. Some old posts will be available temporarily. Writing on this tablet is slow, so the links in this post will be ugly. (Edit, 2 September 2017: I created hyperlinks from a real computer.)
  2. To hope is to desire an object or event with the expectation that it is possible to fulfill the desire.
  3. By March 2012, I lost all hope. I may have regained some hope in January 2016, but that was stomped out of me by July 2016.
  4. It is possible to survive without hope, but it has been a horrible experience: despair. (It might be possible, or good, however, to live without hope and with inner peace.)
  5. I sold some of my equipment.
  6. I bought some of the medicine I need. Of the essential medications, I will start to have supply problems in about a week.
  7. Thank you for the US$15, Mom.
  8. Thank you very much, Josh, for sending me every penny in your bank account.
  9. MXN$327.10
  10. PayPal US$63.31
  11. I have never sought asceticism, but asceticism found me.
  12. In Buddhist philosophy, desire is a type of attachment, and because attachment causes suffering, Buddhism says to extinguish desire.
  13. Therefore, hope causes suffering.
  14. Optimism is a perspective that interprets something as optimal.
    1. Optimism
    2. Optimal.
  15. Science has recently discovered that a healthy mind is delusionally optimistic.
  16. (Note well: hoping for the optimal outcome is not optimism, it is hope.)
  17. I want health, but I don’t want delusions.
  18. I want my perspective to be rooted in realism, but I don’t want despair.
  19. I’m going higher into the mountains, on foot.
  20. I doubt that fate is a destination or an outcome, but fate might be a path.

Alea iacta est.

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