This is why I am an optimist. I define "optimist" as a person who has an irrationally positive view of the future. Alternatively, I could be a realist, but then I'd have to admit that I've always been captured by the state (as you describe), which pretty much qualifies me (and all but a few) as a mainly wayward serf.
All I need to straighten myself out is to have somebody point a gun at me. That wouldn't fix the bigger problem of our precarious constitutional republic. But it would immediately clarify my sense of an enemy and my purpose in defense [as long as the threat persists].
"[...] citizens are that retarded." You talkin' to me? I think you're talkin' to me. (I'm not insulted. Just resigned. And optimistically, I may have misunderstood you.)
Optimism is not an option, but hope is not a strategy. So what the Stoic does is constant risk management as well as operational improvement. There is always evidence that some people have figured out how to work the system, whether or not that system is corrupt. The smart money has a fallback plan to land softly if and when that corruption gets sorted.
A marriage metaphor says women should not lose their figure just because their husband is a drunk.
This is why I am an optimist. I define "optimist" as a person who has an irrationally positive view of the future. Alternatively, I could be a realist, but then I'd have to admit that I've always been captured by the state (as you describe), which pretty much qualifies me (and all but a few) as a mainly wayward serf.
All I need to straighten myself out is to have somebody point a gun at me. That wouldn't fix the bigger problem of our precarious constitutional republic. But it would immediately clarify my sense of an enemy and my purpose in defense [as long as the threat persists].
"[...] citizens are that retarded." You talkin' to me? I think you're talkin' to me. (I'm not insulted. Just resigned. And optimistically, I may have misunderstood you.)
Optimism is not an option, but hope is not a strategy. So what the Stoic does is constant risk management as well as operational improvement. There is always evidence that some people have figured out how to work the system, whether or not that system is corrupt. The smart money has a fallback plan to land softly if and when that corruption gets sorted.
A marriage metaphor says women should not lose their figure just because their husband is a drunk.
Right on, to all of that. Right on.
And further to my optimism and implied [partial] rejection of realism, I believe what I choose to believe, which is not necessarily supported by fact.
When life offers me no lemons, I can still believe in lemonade.