THE INVULNERABILITY OF THE OPTIMIST

We optimists awaken at dawn full of the joys of anticipation and the certainty of success and sixteen hours later we retreat to bed wounded and weakened by the ambushes from cynics, sceptics and pessimists. We sleep fitfully but the next day we wake up full of the  joys of anticipation….

No wonder we are loathed by the purveyors of dystopian rhetoric and targeted as beastly balloons of cheerfulness. We are like low, slow-flying pheasants cheerfully indifferent to the shotguns of despair. We are, in short, irrepressible.

And if we listen to Steve Pinker (our cheerleader) we seem in the right. He says that we are, on every known measurement, progressing ever forwards to a better world of longer, happier, healthier and wealthier lives. His new book “Enlightenment now” has been described as heartening and inspiring. But it has enraged Black Swan author and  grumpy apostle of doom, Nassim Taleb, who regards Pinker as devoid of rigour.

Sceptics like him have plenty of ammunition. The betrayal of trust by politicians, economists and bankers; the Syrian catastrophe; ISIS; Al -Qaeda; the Parkland Florida shooting; Donald Trump pretty well daily and so on. But their espousal of  catastrophe is pretty thin stuff viewed against the sweep of history.

That’s not how the news sounds of course. Even some bad weather (forecast to coincide with when you are reading this in the UK or Europe) has been named “the Beast from the East”. A cold snap is demonised.

Mel Brooks, like many comics a bit of a pessimist, said: “Hope for the Best. Expect the worst. Life is a play. We're unrehearsed.”  Spot on Mel. We are living in a happier, better world for sure but it’s a whole lot messier. The sense of under-rehearsal and busking is evident in the behaviour of all our politicians.  Recently we saw a play called “The Play that goes Wrong”. It was a farce that felt very appropriate for our times. And we all laughed because that’s what optimistic human beings do when things mess up.

Our lives move faster. Our news is more fractured. Reactions are more erratic. Nuance is a thing of the past. Things are extreme - either  good or bad. We live in a binary tick-box culture but…big but… things are getting better. Institution after institution is given a roasting - as Oxfam and others were last week. They say sorry,  are reformed and then life goes on - better. This week it was the turn of the Police. The Supreme Court  deemed “failures in the investigation of the crimes, provided they are sufficiently serious, will give rise to liability on the part of the police”. This related to mistakes in the original Worboys’ investigation.  A real surprise for pessimists about human rights but as Steve Pinker reminds us:

“humans have innate desires for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  So in the end things tend to work out in justifying our desires and our unquenchable optimism.

HOW DID YOU DO IN YOUR EXAMS?

Anyone who knows me thinks I’m an optimist maybe, sometimes, too much of one. A colleague in advertising suggested I’d enthuse over old turnips to win the account for Old Turnip Growers. So when I say that because Brighton’s population has a greater % of people with degrees than anywhere else in the UK, you need a 2.1 to get a job at Pizza Express, everyone would assume I was being flippant.

Which I was. But now I’m not so sure.

All I hear anyone talk about now is education. I see people doing jobs they hate, working themselves to death and suffering rotten lifestyles to fund their children’s education or lying sleepless in bed in case the dice falls the wrong way when they allocate primary school places. Fortunately it fell the right way for my grandson. Great excitement and relief; even pride. Grandson aged 4, asked if he had anything to say, replied (and I love the brightness of this):

“Yes. Can you stop going on about it. It’s only a school.”

It’s only a school. Right on son and it can help but not substitute for your innate smartness and appetite for life.

This week I heard of a brilliant young talent in childcare who wouldn’t (couldn’t) do his exams so now he’s out of childcare and into…whatever (or nothing). Imagine if they discover Wayne Rooney had insufficient GCSEs and was being fired by Man United. Or if you were told the meal you’d just enjoyed in a restaurant had been cooked by a degree-free chef. Imagine the rising sense of nausea. Not even an HND?

Exams trap people rather than liberate their talent. I want to know what people show a liking and talent for. And that talent being encouraged and becoming great and amazing.

Degrees are not qualifications. They comprise a pretty easy exam at the end of a pretty enjoyable three years talking, listening, drinking and learning. Which is good in its own right..

But education is not about ramming stuff into kids, it is…Balliol. Oxford? Literally, from educere (latin) – to lead out, draw forth.

So more of this drawing out, please. And the next time I hear someone given a job based on the exams they’ve passed rather than their energy, enthusiasm and appetite for life remind me to be optimistic if I can.

Turnips indeed!