Brad Stulberg writes in his NYT op-ed essay "How to Keep Going Amid the Chaos" about the concept of "tragic optimism", defined by Viktor Frankl as arising from "the three tragedies" of life:
... The first tragedy is pain, because we are made of flesh and bone. The second is guilt, because we have the freedom to make choices and thus feel responsible when things don’t go our way. The third is loss, because we must face the reality that everything we cherish is impermanent, including our own lives. Tragic optimism means acknowledging, accepting and even expecting that life will contain hardship and hurt, then doing everything we can to move forward with a positive attitude anyway. It recognizes that one cannot be happy by trying to be happy all the time, or worse yet, assuming we ought to be. Rather, tragic optimism holds space for the full range of human experience and emotion, giving us permission to feel happiness and sadness, hope and fear, loss and possibility — sometimes in the same day, and even in the same hour.
Tragic optimism does not encourage actively seeking out or romanticizing suffering. Not everything has to be meaningful; sometimes things just suck. Rather, tragic optimism realizes the inevitability of suffering but also that we generally have at least some say in how we face it. Difficult moments, both personal and collective, often lead to extreme behaviors: what’s now known as toxic positivity on the one hand — burying our heads in the sand and deluding ourselves that everything is great — or excessive pessimism and despair on the other. Both absolve us of doing anything about the situation. Excessive optimism and delusion, at root, deny that anything is wrong; and if nothing is wrong, there is nothing to worry about and nothing to change. Extreme pessimism and despair are so grim they essentially say that any action would be pointless. Between these two poles exists a third way: committing to wise hope and wise action. Wise hope and wise action ask us to accept a situation and see it clearly for what it is, and then muster the strength, courage and resolve to focus on what we can control. We remind ourselves that we have faced challenges before. We continue because to stand still is not an option. Recognizing that we maintain agency fuels hope, and maintaining hope reminds us that we have agency. Resilience comes down to a few core factors: leaning into community, being kind to yourself, finding small routines to support your mental health, allowing yourself to feel sadness and loss and yet maintain hope at the same time. It requires a commitment to taking productive action.
Stulberg's concluding advice:
So important to aspire for, so challenging to achieve ...
(cf Bennett on Stoicism (1999-04-29), Search for Meaning (2005-08-27), David Brooks on Being Human (2023-10-21), ...) - ^z - 2024-11-30