No worries, I don't take it as arguing at all. I don't know. I guess you'd have to walk a few miles in my hush puppies to get a better sense of where I'm coming from with this and I'm probably not doing a great job of expressing it. I'm really not a pessimistic person. This recent election is a great example of my positive outlook. Most of my friends on social media were freaking the fuck out about the election because they were all convinced that they were not going to like the outcome. I remained very confident in what the outcome would be and I was positively bursting with optimism throughout the entire 2020 election cycle. And in the end, although I was wrong about the margins, I was right about the outcome, even though the "expect the worst from everyone" philosophy was still there, I thought people with my worldview would rise to this occasion and they did, in an historic way too.
So I don't want to leave everyone with the impression that I am this totally constantly negative person who spews nothing but anger and resentment. Not at all. In fact, since I gave up expecting anything good from anyone my life has improved dramatically. To put it in the simplest terms I guess you could say I just don't give a fuck anymore. I don't need to convince anyone that I'm right, wrong or indifferent about anything because I stopped caring what other people think. The freedom this mindset offers is very refreshing.
You may have noticed I steer clear of the politics forums now. I have about as much interest in arguing about politics as I do in shoving a catheter up my urethra. Such a colossal waste of time and effort that was. It was one of the best things I ever did for myself.
I appreciate your honesty. My response is offered for others to contemplate, but I think I've come to a similar - not identical - place but in a very different way (and it's not for everyone, just look in the P/R area for proof of that).
I saw you wrote this: "Most of my friends on social media were freaking the fuck out about the election because they were all convinced that they were not going to like the outcome." and "I thought people with my worldview would rise to this occasion and they did, in an historic way too."
I struggle to equate that mindset - not saying you are wrong, simply saying I struggle with it - with this, which I agree with deeply: "We are played the hand we're dealt, not the hand we want." They are not really compatible, at least as I see it. I believe I'm a good person, with good intentions, who cares about other people. Yet - just to use your example, not to make this about politics - I don't see the election outcome in the same metaphysical way you do. It's not the product of an optimistic worldview. It was a different kind of disaster. So something - or someone - is wrong. I don't think it's as easy as "you are", or "I am", so how do we reconcile that? And I've sort of chosen to separate the emotional out of it. There is no "right" or "wrong" in that sense of the word. THERE CAN'T BE; it's illogical, because both states can't coexist.
We - and the people that think like us - do not exist in a vacuum. The world is CHOCK FULL of people that think differently from me AND that thing differently from each other. There's not two sides, one right and one wrong. There are 20, 30, 40, 50, maybe more, maybe 1,000's of sides, each with elements of objective right and subjective maybe (could be right, could be wrong, sometimes both in context) and we have to allow for that. I can't - psychologically - view the world as simply "worst case"; I'm not wired that way, so I have sort of been pushed in the corner of removing the emotion from it. It's not easy, especially when most of the people around you not only haven't, but have no interest in doing that, but it is what it is. I have traded momentary bouts of doubt and anxiety for a far more comprehensive sort of peace that I never really had before.