Daily musings #588 - Thursday, 1 September 2022

My thinking and titling need an upgrade. I call myself a “Dystopian Optimist” - and this term was desperately missing something. I am therefore trying to make it more complete and reflect closer on how I think about myself.

So let me recap my previous way of thinking and what was missing in it. I look at the world through a dystopian lens. I don’t look at the world as a “fair or just world” as it helps me adjust and accept realities more quickly than others might. Once I accept that the future is indeed dystopian, the thankful optimism that is in-built in me allows me to look at it as: “If this is how the world is going to be, what best can I do in it?” That is why I called myself a “Dystopian Optimist”

What was missing in the above label was the lack of bias towards action. It was one thing to say it is okay to have a dystopian attitude and an optimism-infused approach from there. But optimism alone is not enough. Action is required. I realized that I am an experimentalist - always experimenting. And finding things that work and eliminating things that did not in order to drop them. The action puts the optimism to some value.

So there is it… my new label “Dystopian Optimistic Experimentalist” - it is great to keep trying something new all the time.