IN MY WORK and travels, I meet a great many people who ask me, essentially, how I can be an optimist in this world. There was a time when I wasn’t. I’m still not, always. Nobody can be honest and be an optimist all the time. On my good days I am. Most days I am. Outdoors I usually am.

When I was very young, before I got smart and confused, I stumbled upon something instinctively. Every summer when the clan gathered Up North to go fishing, we had a fishing ‘derby.’ Score was kept diligently, every fish of every size and species noted in the column of the person who caught it. There was great drama and suspense in this contest, at least the way my grandad ran it. But every summer I was certain of one thing. I would win the fishing derby.

And I did. This certainty that I would win the contest was not an assumption, where one sits back and waits for something to happen; but a belief through which one makes something happen. So strongly did I believe that I would win the derby, catching more fish than parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers, and cousins, and so excited was I about the prospect, that I awoke every morning energized and inspired. And, of course, since it was a belief and not an assumption, I did everything possible to make it happen. I ate fast and ran back to the dock to fish while other people were still chewing. I got up early and fished while others were still sleeping. I begged and pleaded to go out in every boat at any time of day. I read fishing books and kept my reel oiled and my hooks sharp, as my grandad taught me.

Looking back, I realize I had stumbled upon a principle it would take me many years to lose, rediscover, and finally be able to put into words. That optimism and pessimism are not opposite ways of looking passively at a static reality—a glass half full or half empty—but instead are opposite means or paths toward creating a dynamic reality. Experts and Cynics and Wise Men may speak dismissively of optimism and Pollyanna-ism and rose-tinted glasses, and talk in somber tones about ‘realism’—with the explicit assumption that realism and pessimism are closely related. But the fact is that in an evolving, dynamic, creative, and circular universe, optimism is realism.

To begin in optimism and then act through it is to engage in creating a more optimal or optimistic reality, which circles back again. What you see IS what you get. And you’re ready, you’re prepared, when opportunities arise and good things happen. If I were to draw a diagram I would simply make an endless, circling arrow with Realism at one pole and Optimism at the other. Of course, pessimism is realism, too, and works by precisely the same principle in the opposite direction. But pessimism makes me tired. Eventually it makes me depressed. And when I’m tired and depressed I’m not worth squat. No fishing, no fish. Right.

Finally, in a complicated and confusing time (insert any dates in history) as a member of an imperfect species on a beautiful but degraded planet, I can choose to take an optimistic view of the human prospect because I believe that something, perhaps something we call the human spirit, is ‘smarter’ than the human mind. It is also braver and more persistent. It knows that life is often full of pathos and tragedy, nullity and confusion, but it senses something more. A fundamental reality of numinous meaning, in which life is rooted and toward which it grows and aspires. It knows, this something within us, what it needs, and its needs are simple. A green world. Clear, reflective waters. Sweet air. Belonging. Justice. Beauty. Hope. Love. A few other things. And although human beings are incredibly adaptable, the human spirit will not endlessly tolerate the lack of its essential needs. Our history—in the long view—proves it. Like a tree reaching for the sun, or a rhizome that grows and flowers again and again, the spirit will keep on. It will persist and find a way.

It’s not our minds, clouded by pessimism or doubt, but our spirits that will prevail. And so we are allowed—perhaps even required—to be optimistic.

From my book, Fawn Island.
(All my books available at www.douglaswood.com )