I shouldn't be here, the first 20 years of my life were essentially every bad thing, defective body, I had my first birthday party at 30, dead parents, stolen and exploited childhood, moving all the time, constant mortality threat, surgery induced aphantasia, waking surgeries scenarios that spiral some adults into ptsd. Long term thwarted desires because I couldn't get health insurance without being a wage slave pre ACA. Co-founded my own succesful company the moment I could get ACA.

I have a brain and as my wife once told me in a moment of frustration.

"You're just happy to be here" and that is true. I didn't ask to be born and I've generally not enjoyed it, I'm only here because random luck geographically and temporarily allowed me to just squeak by surviving childhood and adolescents, I am a few years away from a cardiological surgery I could easily die in.

But, it's all so damn funny isn't it, what an odd thing to be alive, a little cluster of atoms arranged human wise. I hope I die not having achieved what I want to achieve, I hope, like sharks, I never keep moving.

Humans generate meaning, we are the known, empirically observed generators of the mosy complex meaning in existence and we still don't know and haven't created most stuff, it's early days yet. In the meantime, we're part of the entropic cycle, and we emit meaning the way stars emit photons.

People will say we aren't special, but we are, special and rare and should be preserved, dolphins, et all should be too, but let it be observed that it will be humans and not dolphins that deflect asteroids for the foreseeable future.

Many times when things got bad I thought I'd kill myself, I woke up from so many surgeries I started getting disappointed when I'd wake up, but I was too damn curious about what happens next, I can always end it tomorrow, nbd, I look forward to the perma nap, I'm an accident that shouldn't exist and I can exert casual leverage on the world with mere speech.

Who knows what the future holds, let's give dolphins thumbs, let's give silicon rockets to explore the universe, let's engineer long life so we can start worrying about solving entropy instead of whether or not a single spinning rocks "mid air collision" or 5 degree increase in temperature will cause total societal collapse and put an end to our weird little epicenter of meaning generation.

Maybe we solve entropy, maybe we figure out how to change the topology of spacetime, maybe we don't, it's too early to tell.

Optimism is just the headspace to try again, it's not emotional ignorance, it's not positivity, it's the curiosity to keep trying new experiments, and the humility to not be intellectually certain of despair.

I like your post, as it exhibits a sentiment I can relate to (though I have had a FAR smoother existence than what you've experienced, thus far, I think). I hope you have a rewarding future and I hope that luck is on your side with that upcoming risky surgery.

To me, optimism is a form of acceptance of whatever may come. I will deal with whatever comes my way, and in the meantime, I will expect and work towards "the best" outcomes. Assuming/expecting the worst just adds friction and stress to my consciousness which serves no practical purpose. Why experience the bad things before they even happen? I face stressful "could go either way" situations with the mentality that it will work out, but I am fully ready to deal with the situation going as badly as it could. I prepare mentally for the bad outcomes, but don't dwell on it like many people seem to. It's just not worth it. I figured this out as a kid and developed that way of thinking throughout my life, refining and reinforcing it over time.

I've now outlived a number of friends who I just assumed would always be there to talk to. They died totally unexpectedly, heart attacks and stuff like that. The journey could be over at any moment. I recognize and accept the temporality of everyone in my life including myself, and I actually use this acknowledgement to motivate myself to embrace the opportunity of life and not waste time on stupid bullshit, including thinking negatively or dwelling on fear-based lines of thought. It's like a basic judgment I apply to almost everything I think about, just passively, and it's a great filter to optimize for spending time on things that I think enrich my life (or future life) and that of those around me who I care about.