“obit anus, abit onus.”
Nietzsche also questioned his convictions, on the basis that he played the flute.
Contra-Nietzsche could get you out of your pessimistic outlook, at least for a moment, as he’s a joke. He’s a dirty one, though.
And in this case, he in his Sauwelios-obsessed ranting actually said something sensible. I know a thing or two about being in, and getting out of, a depression. http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?t=177621&p=2354118
That is actually, the nicest thing anyone has said about me in a while Sauwelios… I’m a joke, but a Dirty Joke. That’s going in on my tombstone.
Dude… how about instead of escaping your Pessimism, and rushing to us for answers, just deal with the consequences and carry on. You said it started with you reading arguments… so you changed your point of view based on conviction. Be brave now, not timid. Seek out more kinds of knowledge, as it was your choice to do that in the first point, and know you don’t have to suckle from our nips here. Mix some shit up, select a couple random books off the shelf, and if your still poopie faced afterwards, just come to accept that as your face. And I don’t reject Nietzsche for his questioning of faith, pessimism or optimist, but the whip and death that comes inevitably after. Catholicism isn’t Islam, your more than welcome to leave. I wish I could put together a going away package, with cookies and such for you.
Pessimism is but a perspective of living, the emphasis is living.
You dirty joke, you.
I was an optimist in the past and accused of seeing life through rose-colored glasses, which wasn’t necessarily totally the truth of it. I did see both but ignored the more negative which isn’t being real either. The thing is that many of us look through lenses which have been muddied by our own illusions and desires - even the desire to be an optimist or a pessimist - which if looked at more closely we are neither or. But for some strange reason, some of us actually choose to be pessimists. Why, I’m not sure. Perhaps philosophers feel that it’s a cool thing to be a pessimist or that it’s a learning experience.
Now I try to be an optimistic realist (a realist is the far best to be I think) though leaning more on the realist side. At any rate, to try to see what is actually there, examine that and live through it. The key word here is “actually” not subjectively perceived.
I notice that you’ve chosen a very pessimistic Schopenhauer signature. That alone would keep you pessimistic. It doesn’t actually give the 'real" picture. …it only gives one side to it.
Here’s another of his quotes:
The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.
which lends itself more helpful to becoming an optimist, if not so a realist, than the highly pessimistic one which you choose.
here’s another:
A man’s delight in looking forward to and hoping for some particular satisfaction is a part of the pleasure flowing out of it, enjoyed in advance. But this is afterward deducted, for the more we look forward to anything the less we enjoy it when it comes.
This one is both credible and wise - not pessimistic at all. But perception is everything. It also speaks to an optimist’s viewpoint and pleasure – but against the danger of hedonism.
We can pick and choose any of Schopenhauer’s quotes. What we choose will depend on who we are. If you want to change, begin to choose those quotes which are contrary to your belief…that belief being of the signature you put of the Schopenhauer quote. Someone once said that “what you see is what you become”.
Then you need to change your focus to what you see NOW. If it’s something good, let the reality of that be what you flow through. The “realization” IS that at some point something negative may just happen and when that occurs, you will do what it takes to plow through that or to transcend it. But let’s face it - you cannot really live in the past and doing that does rob the present of its power. Waiting for the “other shoe” to drop is not physically nor mentally healthy for us.
Being a pessimist cuts that lifespan at least in half.
Aside from all of that, I am not so sure you’ve only been a pessimst for a short time. 
Would anyone start a thread somewhere serious so we can talk about the demonization of hedonism?
I would do it myself if I wasn’t so puerile.
Read shoppie’s aesthetics OP, that may lighten you up.
Schopenhauer’s mother told him that if she could have, she would have aborted him. Now that’s enough to lead many if not most into a pessimist attitude. That’s not to say that others might not have transcended that. Many have even if the words were not so stated. If you read the history of someone’s life, you might come to realize how they adopted the paradigm which they did and then you can also realize how it may be tainted by bias and prejudice and pain and loss…though at the same time you can also realize that it might have been miraculous if they had adopted a different world view than the one they had. But we all have the power to change the way in which we think and act.
Stuart has already done that. He opened a hedonism thread.
That thread already starts with a strawmen right in its title.
I was thinking more along the lines of “what is hedonism?”
What’s the difference. It’s going to evolve into the same thing. If you like to recylce and to replicate…tribble tribble tribble…purr purr purr 
I suppose.
I’ll just resign to cringing every time I see the word in a sentence.
Here are quotes from Schopenhauer on pessimism:
goodreads.com/work/quotes/2 … hopenhauer
Is this the way things “really are”?
Well, to my way of thinking, each individual will react to these words based on:
1] whatever particular set of circumstances they find themselves in. To wit: do they have an adequate income? are they surrounded by friends? do they have families that love them? are they fulfilled sexually? do they have plenty to eat? are they sheltered from the storms? do they have interests in life that fulfill them? etc.
In other words, to paraphrase John Lennon, “pessimism is a concept by which we measure our pain”.
Or
2] If they have little or none of those things in their lives they can still be optimistic if they have faith in God. Why? Because what are the 70 odd years we spend down here compared to the eternity to come – an eternity spent reveling in the Salvation that is Heaven?
Now, if someone’s life is miserable [circumstantially] with little or no propect of changing it AND she has no faith in God, how could it NOT be rational for her to be pessimistic?
Again, most of us are in different places [here and now] with respect to the lives we live and regarding our belief in God. And this is rooted in dasein. And in our options.
So, from my vantage point, we can describe the extent to which we might be either optimistic or pessimistic about our lives – but [sans God] there does not appear to be a way [philosophically] in which to decide if it is reasonable to be either one or the other.
James’ a good guy. He was one of the people who aided me out of pessimism.
I agree with his advice.
When I discovered Schopenhauer, I was jealous of his life.
That’s a true story.
Awe… 
It also might be good to watch Cheers reruns every night before bed. 
I don’t think that was Schopenhauer’s mother. I think you are referring to Emil Cioran. While Cioran was a true pessimist, the abortion quote from his Mother made him not take life so seriously, since he considered himself to be a total accident.
I’m trying to be more of a realist; I don’t think I’m a pessimist, but I do tend to be extreme in my viewpoints and I tend to generalize. I tend to see things in black and white.
I like this quote from George Bernard Shaw:
“Life isn’t easy…but it can be wonderful.”
Years ago, when I was 22 or so, I had this string of awful dreams. It lasted for months. I’d be chased by people and wouldn’t know why. They weren’t exactly nightmares but they certainly were unpleasant.
One night I had a dream that I was being chased, as usual, and I went to the top of an apartment building. There was a group of people there and it was a surprise party of some sort. I laughed, then I woke up and never had any of those dreams (the bad ones) again.
But, I thought that pessimists lived longer? 
Altruistic optimists are murdered sooner. 
Definitely. They trust everyone, including the guy knocking at their door that wants to “do yard work.”
It’s quite easy to be Alturistic and a Optimist when you know, deep down inside, you can systematically destroy anyone, no matter how supposedly powerful they claim to be.
So I am usually the Alturistic and Pessimistic one, so long as I’m not groggy from waking too early, in which case your just fucked being around me.