[Leslie Neilsen]
And don’t call me Shirley.
[/Leslie Neilsen]
Need I repeat myself … myself … myself … ?
Maybe you are an exception, but my very magnificent shrink said that anticipating the worst possible outcome does not prepare you for it when it happens.
Besides, most of the time nothing much is happening and you are wasting all of that opportunity to be happy. Wasting a chance to out a good outlook is CRAZY!!!
But you knew that I was going to say that, didn’t you? 
I don’t think I could generate too much emulation for either Dorothy Parker or Oscar Levant. Both of them played their gifts rather than developed their talents, and then drank themselves to death.
Likewise, I can’t help but observe that cynicism is usually a convenient platitude, whereas skepticism is something that has to be continually worked upon.
Eve, bitter depressed cynicism such as you have is most usually exhibited by sullen teenagers. So your post shows that you’re young at heart.
Now everybody sing with me:
Life’s a piece of shit,
When you look at it.
Life’s a laugh and death’s a joke. It’s true.
You’ll see it’s all a show.
Keep 'em laughing as you go.
Just remember that the last laugh is on you.
Yeah! Nanny nanny boo boo!
Let’s start a support group, LifeOnWry.
El Hubbo and I have been married for almost 14 years; the good news is that I finally figured out that he just needs to be dire about things and I need to let him be that way without freaking out. His pessimism drives me nuts, but less nuts than it used to.
“I’m not negative. I’m positive things will go wrong!” - El Hubbo
Nemo, when you’re finished your soft-shoe, may I break in with,
*I love to be unhappy,
I live to be in pain!
When days are full of sunshine,
I’m lookin’ for the rain!
I love to have a headache,
I’m happy with a cold—
I’m lookin’ for a problem;
Why wait until I’m old?*
I’m always looking for the pony while my husband sees the barn full of manure. I don’t think I’m unrealistically optimistic, but in the grand scheme of my life, there’s been lots more good than bad, and the bad always gets better.
Some stuff just ain’t worth sweating.
I’m pretty optimistic (but not sickeningly so) and my husband is always looking under the bed. We make a cute couple, actually!
(him) “We can’t go out on the Harley today, it might rain Thursday!”
(me) “Yeah, but if it’s really hot Thursday, we’ll cool down from the rain!”
(him) “Cheer down, babe.”
What you happy, peppy people don’t seem to realize is, we cannot choose to be happy!
Oh, I could go try Happy Pills, I guess, but all my friends tell me horrible things about them. Besides, I was born cranky and depressed; being cheerful and optimistic might be such a shock to my system it would finish me off.
Ah, Eve.
What you bitter, cynical and depressed people don’t seem to realize is, we cannot choose to be like you!
Seriously. It’s just as hard for us. We’d go crazy.
I guess we balance each other out. I know El Hubbo and I do.
Ah, the great SDMB darkness & light balancing act. Should everyone line up behind Eve or GfH (according to their predisposition)?
If cynical, bitter and depressed are taken. May I have “Bitchy”?
I wanna be “Disgruntled”.
My motto: “No good deed goes unpunished.”
Lotsa good stuff here: www.despair.com
I tend to lean a little towards the embittered side of the toast. I know that confession may shock a few Dopers, but s’true. However, as a true cynic, I am also cynical of cynicism, and fight against it with Eastern philosophy. See, if you’re Zen, nothingness is GOOD. If you’re a nihilist, nothingless is inevitable, and (quite frankly) depressing. I say look into Taoism.
Seriously, though. I recently had a thought: my father, the shrink, has been wont to say that he thinks I have been depressed since I was 5. So being slightly miserable is my normal state of being. Which is why, when I get in a good relationship, or get into a place in my life without a lot of misery, I panic. It just doesn’t seem normal to be content. It’s like osmosis: I’m just trying to get my emotional pH balenced. Unfortunately, my normal emotional pH is highly acidic.
So, my miserable fellows: do we try to change the way we have always been? Do we begin anew and reconstruct our “normal” state? Pills and therepy and all. Can you really reconstruct a new “normal?”
There’s little in taking or giving,
There’s little in water or wine.
This living, this living, this living
Was never a project of mine.
- Dottie Parker
Eve, I’m with you on that one! Those cheerful optimists make me growl. I myself am a cheerful cynic. And bitter. And possibly depressed. But in an upbeat way. 