I'm Not an Optimist

Optimists always seemed to me to be people who drank their own kool-AID as in (LSD).
I met them in church often like the lady in my folks church who grabbed me when I was age 10 and began to sing, "I love Money" as a prayer until I knew she was nuts. So, as a child I began to see optimists as nuts.

I think almost dying from first whooping cough and then almost dying from childhood epilepsy took away from me permanently my optimistic approach to life. Death was always looking over my shoulder and so I saw death always as very real and very real having been close to it for so many years of my life. No optimism was not for me.

However, I have always been an idealist. This for me is dreaming that things might get better and might be good. But at core life has always taught me to be a pragmatist. If you aren't a pragmatist after having whooping cough and childhood epilepsy then you are either crazy or dead.

So in some ways by age 10 I was an adult and didn't go back to being a child until my early 20s when I met flower children. Though this worked for me it might not work these days. After considering suicide for a few years from ages 21 to 23 I began to come out of it and finally married and had a son by age 26. Then I had a reason to stay alive and I have ever since.

However, this did not mean that I wasn't always a very helpful caring person. On the contrary all my near experiences with death only increased my compassion for all beings. However, the nearness of death also made me not want to freak out about the nearness of death and just get it over with. The nearness of death was freaking me out so suicide seemed a useful option.

However, dating a lot back then eventually cured me of suicide and eventually resulted in getting married and having a son. And doing this I became a householder yogi and have had a useful discipline that has moved me forward towards enlightenment ever since.

No, I'm not an optimist but I am realistic enough to take care of my family and through that myself and hopefully through my studies to some degree share my enlightenment with those capable of listening and benefiting from it.