February 29th

A break...

Since there have been very few February 29ths in history, I thought I'd run my original post explaining what this blog is about. It's also the point where I am going to have to break off for a while - I have a paid job which is getting busy again and I have to prioritise. It's easy to pick up and I'll fill in the gaps when I have more time.

I have been trying to get this idea off the ground for a while - as a book, as a newspaper column, as a tv programme, as a radio idea. No-one seems to get it, or think it's even worth 'getting'. I should have realised that a blog is the best way to realise it.

For me the Optimist's Almanac is pretty important because it's partly an attempt to change my own attitude to life and not be ground down by the way the world is, or is reported to be.

There's a lot of bad news about, we have to admit that. Newspapers and tv bulletins almost seem to take pleasure in wallowing in it. But apparently, today's bad news isn't enough - we have to be  reminded constantly that such-and-such a date is the anniversary of another terrible tragedy.

 

9/11, 7/7 and in Spain 3/11 are the days when the media really go to town and reopen the wounds once more. But there are many others and the list is growing every year - we have World Aids Day, World Holocaust Day, World Tsunami Day. I don't want to be disrespectful to any victims or their families, but private grief is one thing; we don't have to turn it into an industry.

It seems like every day is an anniversary of something horrific, dreary or depressing and the calendar is being swallowed up by the merchants of doom and gloom. If you really want to depress yourself, try this thought from Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the d’Urbervilles": every year we pass over the date of our own death and never even notice.

It doesn't have to be this way. There is a more optimistic way of looking at life and reclaiming the calendar for positive thinking. This Optimist's Almanac will try and show for every day in the year both an anniversary of bad news and, more importantly, a reason be cheerful; to rejoice in the ingenuity of mankind and the amazing world it has built. Which one we focus on is up to us- are we optimists or not?

 

Comments

[Adam]

Am surprised not to see a stream of glass-half-full encouragements to keep going on this. I'm a bitter, twisted, kick-dogs-street-corners street type and even i can see the genius of what you're doing.

Q.How long can be it before a newspaper 'borrows' the concept? Down, cynicism, down. Looking forward to more optimism