"Optimism: trend alert?"

NY Daily News caption from its Fashion Week coverage under a photograph of a Kate Spade bag that — I am not kidding — looks like this:



That may represent a trend, but it is not optimism. It's painful sarcasm and hopelessness about a lost past that wasn't even any good anyway.

That bag, with the burlap fabric and "homemade" childish embroidery, references the early 1960s. (I remember those idiotically cheerful bags ladies carried on the boardwalk.) Perhaps the Kate Spade operation is alluding to the 50-year retrospective on the ultimate crushing of hope that is descending upon us this fall, the Kennedy assassination.

If you're medicated, you might look at that bag and see optimism. Do you complete the sentence to make lemonade? Those words don't appear on the bag (not on that side anyway). Face it: This burlap monstrosity is intended to make you feel bad. Life sucks. Suck a lemon.

"On Tuesday, when Madison residents enjoyed temperatures that hit 78 degrees, a number of calls filtered into the state capital's 911 system with reports of dead people in the grass."

"Also known as, you know, sunbathers. It got so bad that the authorities had to take to Wisconsin Capital Newspapers's Madison.com to get the word out: 'Please tell cellphone users that people lying in the grass are not necessarily dead,' a dispatcher at the 911 center told Madison.com.'... Basically — and now tragically, if rather strangely — Madison residents were so unaccustomed to the good weather, and especially sunbathers, that they were very quick to assume the worst. They saw something, but maybe they said a little too much."

Says Alexander Abad-Santos at The Atlantic Wire, via Steve Elbow at the Cap Times, via Rob Thomas at the Cap Times.

Thomas's piece is extra amusing because it begins with something about — of all people — Meade.

Alexander Abad-Santos's was a little less amusing than it would be if it hadn't happened that, a year ago, a sunbather, lying on the grass in a Madison park, was run over by a city truck and killed.

ADDED: We were out on Picnic Point yesterday evening and saw this:



It turned out to be part of a medical school exercise. Groups of students would arrive and, led by an instructor, attempt to diagnose the medical problem, which was — I happen to know — a collapsed lung.

"My father, who has barely any formal education, but is whip smart, told a story to me right after the market crashed."

"He said that when he was starting his business in the late 70s, his accountant told him that if he just invests X percentage of his monthly income in an IRA, he will be a millionaire by the time he retires. My dad said to him, 'Bullshit. There is no way that the powers-that-be will let a poor schlub like me become a millionaire.' He was right, and will work until the day he dies."

I'm cherry-picking from a big discussion because of the way it's written, not to endorse the viewpoint.

"The Power of Negative Thinking."

"Both ancient philosophy and modern psychology suggest that darker thoughts can make us happier."

Just thinking in sober detail about worst-case scenarios—a technique the Stoics called “the premeditation of evils”—can help to sap the future of its anxiety-producing power. The psychologist Julie Norem estimates that about one-third of Americans instinctively use this strategy, which she terms “defensive pessimism.” Positive thinking, by contrast, is the effort to convince yourself that things will turn out fine, which can reinforce the belief that it would be absolutely terrible if they didn’t.

That's from a new article in the WSJ. There's a similar chapter in David Rakoff's great collection of essays "Half Empty." Excerpt:

[Norem's] research dealt with a specific kind of anxiety-management technique known as “defensive pessimism.” Defensive pessimism is related to dispositional pessimism—that clinical, Eeyore-like negativity—but it is, at most, a first cousin. One who is kickier and more fun to be around; played by the same actress but with her glasses off, a different hairstyle, and a “visiting for the summer from swinging London” accent. 

Both dispositional and defensive pessimists face life with that same negative prediction: “This [insert impending experience, encounter, endeavor here] will be a disaster.” But where the dispositional pessimist sees that gloomy picture as a verdict and pretext to return to or simply remain in bed, the defensive pessimist uses it as the first of a three-part process: 1) the a priori lowered expectations (the previously mentioned presentiment of disaster) are followed by 2) a detailed breakdown of the situation (the “this will suck because …” stage), wherein one envisions the specific ways in which the calamity will take shape. A worst-case scenario painted in as much detail as possible. The process culminates in 3) coming up with the various responses and remedies to each possible misstep along the way (“I will arrive early and make sure the microphone cord is taped down,” “I’ll have my bear spray in my hand before I leave the cabin,” “I’ll put the Xanax under my tongue forty minutes before the party and pretend not to remember his name when I see him,” etc.). A sea of troubles, opposed and ended, one nigglesome wave at a time. Defensive pessimism is about sweating the small stuff, being prepared for contingencies like some neurotic Jewish Boy Scout, and in so doing, not letting oneself be crippled by fear. Where a strategic optimist might approach a gathering rainstorm with a smile as his umbrella, the defensive pessimist, all too acquainted with this world of pitfall and precipitation, is far more likely to use, well, an umbrella.

Norem's book is "The Positive Power of Negative Thinking: Using Defensive Pessimism to Harness Anxiety and Perform at Your Peak."