So how do you do it?

The problem with not posting often is I end up with long, unfocused, meandering stuff like I posted the other day. Simple ideas become complex, my points become obscured, and before I know it, I can’t remember what I wanted to say in the first place.

Having said that…

I am not an optimist or a positive thinker. I’m a cynic, if you will. A lot of times cynical folks justify being cynical by saying that they’re just being realistic. I’m cognizant of that, and I’m certainly guilty of it to varying degrees. So yes, I can admit I have a problem. Although the degree to which it’s a “problem” is debatable.

Anyway.

Seems to me there are two types of positive people:

• The kind that are often described as “bubbly” or “cloying,” and are often blissfully ignorant to an annoying degree and have a positive-thinker cliché holstered and ready to draw like Doc fucking Holliday at the O.K. Corral. (”You can do anything if you put your mind to it.” etc.)
• The kind that are… I guess more passive in their positive attitudes. They don’t push it on you, but they exhude it constantly, and inspire you to be positive through example. They are a pleasure to be around, they make you feel good about yourself, and you feel like a better person just for having known them. They are not the least bit ignorant, and they have sage advice if you ask for it, but don’t offer it unsolicited.

I think it’s obvious from the editorial slant which people I prefer to be around. So, to all of you out there from the second group (or, hell, even the first), I ask you this:

How do you do it?

I was reading an essay the other day extolling the virtues of a positive attitude, which I think we can all agree are more or less obvious.

“You can’t fake it,” the writer said, and I tend to agree with that, but here’s the thing…

If you don’t have a positive attitude and you can’t fake one, then where does it come from?

In short, what makes you believe?

How to you muster enthusiasm for a job you don’t even like, or for activities you don’t enjoy? How do you believe in self-determination when everything you determine to do is somehow thwarted? How do you paint yourself back out of a corner? How do you decide between necessary evils? How do you belive the best about people when you are constantly disappointed? What makes you expend positive energy to seemingly no positive end? How do you believe anybody can do anything when you know they can’t?

I don’t have a particular agenda here, and nothing has happened to set me off on this line of thinking, It’s just something I’ve always wondered. I just don’t understand it. Maybe I lack the capacity. “Explaining color to one who is blind,” and that sort of thing. I know these are questions we all face in some capacity, but there’s a fundamental difference in the way we handle them, and that’s what interests me.

So do you, in fact, “fake it ’til you make it?” That doesn’t seem to be in keeping with the spirit of things, if so. Or do you…

Hmph, that’s all I can think of, which is of course why I’m asking.