Every pessimist is a loser

"The optimist can make mistakes, but the pessimist starts by making mistakes."

 Juscelino Kubitschek

The popular saying goes that "anidle mind is the devil's workshop", or that "idleness is the mother of sin". Popular sayings are generally not the result of empirical studies, but of social perceptions, in time and space, of a certain conduct that guides a given society. And society associates idleness with pessimism.

This is not to say that Schopenhauer, considered by literature and historiography to be the great pessimistic metaphysician of all time, never worked or produced anything. On the contrary, he considered this to be "the worst of all possible worlds" and drafted a manual of rules for the "art of being happy". He was very productive in literary works, but the truth is that in all his writings he only used the term pessimism three times to refer directly to his own doctrine.

The term pessimism is generally taken in philosophical reading in the ontological sense, i.e. it is proper to worldviews whose cardinal principles consider "non-being" to be preferable to "being". The pessimist is, so to speak, a person who doesn't take risks, who enters the field having already lost the game. This is the idleness that comes from the cowardice of not trying.

The pessimist is, by definition, a determinist, who believes that everything is already set in stone and doomed to failure. The optimist, on the other hand, is a consequentialist, who believes that events are a consequence of their actions and can therefore be controlled. The optimist is hopeful, looking forward to the best for themselves.

Hope is a unique characteristic of human beings.

It's not for nothing that the famous Italian humanist writer Dante Alighieri, in his masterpiece The Divine Comedy, describes that the door to hell reads "lasciate ogni speranza, voi che' entrate" (give up all hope, you who enter), because hope is a basic characteristic of the human soul.

The passive view of the pessimist is antagonistic to human creativity, which requires a combination of effort and hope. Effort to accept mistakes as attempts. Hope, because you truly believe in success.

The German philosopher Karl Marx, in describing the relationship between freedom and creativity, precepts that the best spider will always be worse than the worst weaver, because the latter has something that the spider doesn't, the possibility of creating. The spider makes unbelievably beautiful webs because it has a congenital defect: it was born knowing. That's why it makes the same web that its mother and grandmother used to make, it will always be repetitive and uncreative.

Creativity happens when you break the mold of sameness. Therefore, the worst of weavers can always learn what they don't know. And to learn, you need effort and hope, and therefore optimism that you will learn.

But why is it important to be creative? Because this dimension is an expression of freedom which, through the act of innovation, can transform us. Anyone can be creative. Anyone can grow through the creative act. Creativity is not something elitist, it's for everyone. I get angry when people give up before trying because they believe they are not creative, and so they stop taking risks and hold back. Every creative act involves a dose of risk. Those who stop trying to be creative for fear of failure end up living less. Albert Einstein said that people without the ability to marvel at the world, at the mystery of existence, are like candles that burn out.

The creative act sets us apart from other animals because we have the ability to deviate from the "code" of who we are, that is, from the sameness that comes with the routine of survival. The pessimist will never be creative, because their essence is that of "not being", "not doing", "not exposing themselves" and "not producing". Therefore, a non-performer.