We all love to talk about how the world is going to shit. Especially on the internet. Most of the time we don't have our facts straight, but it's always fun to have a good holier-than-thou circle jerk and complain about things. Everything's the worst, everybody's stupid, pizza is a vegetable, rabble rabble rabble! The world can be a depressing place, yes, but let's put that on hold for a minute. Focus: What makes you optimistic about people and the world? What do you see going on that inspires you, gives you hope, and excites you? Individuals, movements, technology, anything. It can be something your three year old daughter does at home, or something going on at the largest international level. Just talk about the good you see out there.
When I see people come into my place of work with children who are well behaved and who listen to their parents and are generally not little shits, I am filled with hope that the other 99 crotch droppings (a phrase I have shamelessly stolen from Pimptress and made my own) are merely the outliers and that I have a bad sampling. Bump (those bad children into a lake).
I kind of feel like the world has always had just shit happening in each generation, and that every generation complains about the newest crop of humans. It's our natural state.
Green energy makes me happy. I like what people can accomplish. Who cares if it is for profit, it is amazing, it is hopeful. The science behind it makes me giddier than the environmental benefits. How cool is it to harness natural elements to make electricity? An array of panels, a windmill, and I can eliminate my light bill? That's hot sex. Awesome bonus. I also have a bit of a man-boner going for Tesla. Musk (*snert*) built a factory that runs autonomously using his own solar company's panels to build a car which circumvents the major car manufacturers' flaws/imperfections and traditional market place. That is extremely exciting. It doesn't even matter if he pulls it off. My friend is a missionary to Uganda. He told me there were people living in literal mud huts, but they had cell phones. We discussed how f'n ridiculous it would be if a 3rd world country completely skipped coal dependency going straight to green energy sources, and ended up with a cleaner, more efficient power system than most major U.S. cities. That makes me smile. Lockheed Martin's Compact Fusion machine is cool too. Lockheed also has an ocean power plant going up in Scotland. For a major military industrial manufacturer to divert significant funds to alternative energies just tells me every other company refusing to embrace new methods is completely full of shit. Again, success doesn't necessarily matter, but that they attempted something new.
Hanging out with children always makes me feel good about the future. These kind of videos always make me feel happy: The New York Times takes a group of children to a 5 star restaurant: Flight of the Concords having a great time writing a song based on interviews with kids:
Ill-behaved and unwanted kids are the menace. Children, as in typical variety kids, are great to hang out with. Stuff like this makes me smile for our species.
You know what makes me happy? Tesla. Tesla makes me happy. Seeing those cars on the roads more often makes me very happy. No reason not to go balls out on electric knowing the shit oil stirs in politics and the environmental impact.
Yo man, somebody stole your batt'ry. I don't think the impact of the Tesla on the environment is as bad as everyone thinks.
Elon Musk in general. He's like a real-life Tony Stark. Its one thing to be successful, but he's done it with alot of balls and alot of "im gonna make this work, I'll figure out how it makes a bunch of money later". SpaceX is cool, Tesla is awesome. Everyone should at least sit in one at some point, its like a spaceship.
I'm proud that humans are putting a lot of time and money into things like the Mars Rover and the Large Hadron Collider. Expanding our scientific horizons usually does result in economic benefits, but it seems like it's really curiosity driving those things. I love that. Figuring out what we are, and what all this craziness around us is, is about as worthwhile an endeavour as anything. If it were up to me, I would fund the shit out of NASA and organizations like it.
Just came across this thread on Reddit: What is something someone said that forever changed your way of thinking? I recommend reading the comments, there's some really cool stuff in there.
I'm inspired just by the fact that I'm/we're alive during the newest most current time to ever exist, and, unlike basically everyone who's lived beyond the last 200 years or so, we can look back and see the entire fucking history of our species and planet. At the same time, I'm regularly blown away by how 'ho-hum' of an attitude people take towards the fact that we know we used to be different beings, and we will be different beings, should we survive long enough. We have this wealth of knowledge, based on the curiosity and effort of countless humans before us, and it's only the beginning, as exemplified by other examples in this thread. The news is consistently depressing, but beyond a stretch in my 20's, I find it exceedingly easy to feel inspired by the here and now.
Every day of my life makes me optimistic about people and the world. I'm one of those assholes that believes most people are good and will try to help if they can. Most people try their damndest to provide for their families, and eek out a good existence while trying to be decent to the rest of humanity. I'm not kidding, despite all the noise in our lives, people usually can be counted on and they usually come through if you need them to. Given my history of representing and seeing some shitty people, it surprises me that I have this world view, but I do nonetheless.
I am consistently inspired by the foster kids on my caseload. They are an incredibly resilient, sweet, adorable bunch of munchkins, and I feel lucky to get to know each and every one of them. Regardless of how grouchy and burnt out I'm feeling, when I get to a home visit it reminds me why I haven't quit yet. Especially when I get to read books and do crafts and jump on trampolines with them.
I think I may have posted this before but it inspires me a lot. We are still basically as this video describes; developing beyond hunter-gatherers, adapting to better digest dairy and grains among certain members of our agrarian and pastoral ancestors, we've befriended the wild Pleistocene megafaunal-hunting wolves of Eurasia and turned them into modern domestic dogs, we've then later domesticated sheep, cattle, chickens, pigs, guinea fowl, geese, turkeys, we expanded by boat and caravan and by our own two feet to many new environments, adapted to them and began breeding and thriving in many of them. We discovered metallurgy, we made weapons from wood and bone to all the way to Toledo steel and even meteor iron. We made sculptures, then paintings, and left our marks all over the world. The only places we couldn't make it to where too far out of our range or too damn cold. And here we are now, with airplanes, sprawling metropolitan cities and all the other trappings of modern society. It's amazing to think of how far we came from blinking in the Old World sunlight and munching on chamois and mammoth meat to living in skyscrapers.
Thai Life Insurance commercials remind me of the good in the world. I know these are just commercials meant to pull on the heart strings, but they get me every time someone posts them somewhere.