September 10 — The Pleasures of Pessimism
A man who took me in to dinner Wednesday night said, pityingly,
“You seem to be a pessimist. Why is that? Are you unhappy?”
That sort of remark is a shot between wind and water, and leaves one speechless. I crossly denied being an ——ist of any sort, and changed the subject.
Possibly he was led to his banal personality by some remark I had made, of the sort that is commonly called cynical because it is true.
The optimists have a theory that those who don’t take the same view of life as themselves must therefore be unhappy. It’s an amazing conclusion. They seem to have no idea how the pessimists enjoy their own sense of superiority. It is as if the blind should say to the man with eyes: “How unhappy you must be to see things just as they are. Now I can imagine them to be anything I please!”
The man with eyes could, of course, only smile; it being obviously impossible to discuss such a proposition.
The believers in personal immortality labour under the same curious illusion apparently. They are so sorry for those who don’t believe in it, and imagine them frightened at the thought of death. To their minds the universe is inconceivable without their presence, seemingly forgetful of the fact that it got on quite well before they came. It is rather an imposing bit of egotism, after all. It rises to the level of grandeur.
Catholics, I know, have the same pity and astonishment about the state of mind of Protestants that the optimists feel for pessimists, the religious for the unbelieving. Each thinks the heretic in parlous state and fancies he must be secretly disturbed by it, when of a truth the heretic is simply amused by this anxiety for his welfare, and cheerfully certain of his own superiority.