Yes to creative optimism

During the course of composing my last few posts I was circling around the idea of being creative enough to think of less shitty outcomes to our current social and political predicament. I speak here in terms of the States specifically by also somewhat generally for a good number of other western democracies. It feels like everywhere you turn there are only prognostications for assholes and autocracy, fear and dissolution, and so forth. But what if we just put that to the side, not to forget about it or lessen the seriousness of those possibilities, but as a means to clear our headspace to imagine something other. As I write those words I’m reminded of similar aspirations, often voiced by young folk that ring out as being either too unrealistic or naive. Perhaps this is no different. Perhaps all such thinking is. And perhaps my view of college-age aspirations is off. Nonetheless, the theme of this coming opinion column in the Washington Post caught my eye. Maybe it will ring hollow and absurd. But I’m curious nonetheless.