Now and then I find things much better-put than I could have managed on my own. I know I try not to do big quotes like this, but the entirety is worth reading. So here's a cold-day gift from me to you:
From Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of my heroes, during the last years of his life--which, for those unacquainted with his work, were spent in a Nazi prison awaiting execution, so he damn well knows what he's talking about:
"It is smarter to be pessimistic. Disappointments are forgotten, and you can stand blameless before men. Thus optimism is proscribed among the intelligent. In its essence, optimism is not a view of the present situation, but a strength for life, a strength to hope where others are resigned, strength to hold one's head up when everything seems to go wrong, power to bear setbacks, strength that never leaves the future for the opponent, but lays claim to it for oneself. To be sure there is a stupid, cowardly optimism that should be proscribed. But no one should feel contempt for optimism as the will toward the future, even though he may be wrong a hundred times. It is the health of life, which cannot be infected by disease. There are persons who think it inane, and Christians who think it impious to hope for a better earthly future and to prepare for it. They believe in chaos, disorder, catastrophe, as the meaning of present events, and in resignation or in pious flight from the world they give up all responsibility for further life, for new construction, for the coming generations. It may be that the world will end tomorrow. If so, we will gladly lay down our work for a better future, but not until then."
