Hi Ms D. That's pretty sharp witted. I am sick up to my neck with all the passive 'hoping' and active whining that someone "shares" in nearly every convo. The concept that pessimism is easy and a coward's way out of acting comes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
"It is more prudent to be a pessimist. It is an insurance against disappointment, and no one can say “I told you so,” which is how the prudent condemn the optimist. The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiration, of vitality and hope where others have resigned; it enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not to abandon it to his enemy. Of course there is a foolish, shifty kind of optimism which is rightly condemned. But the optimism which is will for the future should never be despised, even if it is proved wrong a hundred times. It is the health and vitality which a sick man should never impugn. Some men regard it as frivolous, and some Christians think it is irreligious to hope and prepare oneself for better things to come in this life. They believe in chaos, disorder and catastrophe. That, they think, is the meaning of the present events and in sheer resignation or pious escapism they surrender all responsibility for the preservation of life and for the generations yet unborn. Tomorrow may be the day of judgement. If it is, we shall gladly give up working for a better future, but not before."
~ Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. 1939/1953. Letters and Papers from Prison, originally published as Prisoner for God. Edited by Eberhard Bethge; translated by Reginald H. Fuller. New York, Macmillian, pp. 32-33.
I think this might have been from his diary hidden in the rafters of his house so the Nazis could not find them.
Yeah, Barbara created a very special online place and I miss her and that forum a lot.