David Brooks – RJsCorner

Optimist Or Pessimist??

January 16, 2019January 16, 2019RJ Walters

It seems almost impossible to be an optimist in today’s world, especially now that a totally incompetent person leads our version of it. But these times are not the only time we have been severely challenged as a nation.

Are you optimistic or pessimistic about America’s future? I’m optimistic. I say that because there have been many moments in our history when old ideas and old arrangements stopped working and people chopped them up. Those transition moments were bumpy, and it was easy to lose hope, but then people figured it out. Never underestimate the power of human ingenuity.
Source: New York Times

This quote is from David Brooks who leads the way for those of us who still claim to be optimists.

I think too many of us are still in the “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” mode when it comes to hard times. We throw up our arms in defeat. We see our country controlled by the inmates instead of the good guys. Yes, it takes courage to be an optimist now. But, courage we must have.

I admit that we have never had such an incompetent person in the Oval Office, nor have we had a more partisan ruler of the Senate but eventually times change and things return to normal if there is such a thing. We will survive these times as we have all the others. I don’t even want to think that the opposite is even possible.

Several years ago I learn that Mark Twain become an extreme pessimist in the last part of his life. During that time he wrote some utterly bitter and spiteful things that greatly tarnished his literary image. By the end of his life, he had reached a position of cosmic proportions. I now understand how that is possible but absolutely vow to never allow that to happen to me. Pessimism like can destroy life itself if left uncontrolled.

If it is a choice between Optimism and Pessimism, I will choose optimism every time.

Bluster…

December 3, 2018December 2, 2018RJ Walters

David Brooks from the New York Times and the PBS Newshour recently used a word I haven’t heard in a long time. That word is the title of this post and here is the definition. This word just seems soooo appropriate for someone we all know. I don’t even have to mention his name.

If there is any single word that can possibly contain who this guy is, bluster is it. He is certainly loud, totally aggressive, as indignant as anyone I could ever imagine. He refuses to believe in facts other than the ones he made up.

But I think the last part of this definition will certainly apply now that we have a Democratic House of Representatives. They will do their best to assure that aggressive indignant bluster has little effect. All we have to do now is to sit back and wait for January 20, 2021, and he can take his bluster wherever he wants, as long as it is out of my sight.

Good riddance to horrid bluster.

Thanks David for resurrecting this word for me…

An Incurable Optimist

June 19, 2018June 17, 2018RJ Walters

I was watching a PBS Newshour segment of “Shields and Brooks” a while back and the title above was used to describe David Brooks by his cohort. That is one of the things I most admire about David Brooks. He tries to find things to be optimistic about in every story he discusses. Another is that he is a “True” conservative and doesn’t have much of anything good to say about the current Oval Office occupant.

Here are some of his words that got him labeled an incurable optimist:

“My hero is Edmund Burke, a great Irish philosopher, and parliamentarian and he said manners are more important than laws because manners touch us every day. It’s manners that either degrade us or uplift us…

And so I think, as a society, we’re trying to close those doors, set some new rules, set some norms, because, without the norms of manners and civility, life is just dog eat dog. And so I sort of see it as good news that at least the reaction is coming, the lines are being redrawn.”

Yeah, we are seeing what it means to be without manners and civility especially in our executive branch now. #CO3 just seems to alienate everyone he touches including our strongest allies. I certainly hope Mr. Brooks is right, a reaction is coming and lines will be redrawn. I put the first significant step in the retrieval process to happen at the mid-term elections. If some of the lines are not redrawn then it will be hard for even David Brooks to be an incurable optimist.

#CO3 = Current Oval Office occupant