Babsi Starzer

Dear Pieter and Jacob,

I was in your show last evening and first of all I have to say that it was absolutely great. I know this sounds like a phrase, but another word wouldn't fit what I feel about it. I could have listened to you many more hours.

Reflecting the show with a friend of mine, I found out that we are very similar to the both of you: she is the "pessimism in person" and I'm the optimistic part. I wanted to give you an example of my critical optimism together with my contra part and finally I found one, I'm telling you right now: At the moment (finally since two years) I'm writing on my doctor thesis and to be honest I would love to have it already finished. But as you know wishes are like birds and I hope to haven't broken it's wings ;-) anyways, there have always been ups and downs, no matter how bad the response had been, I have always been on the optimistic side until the time came my adviser told me, that the content is good, but I'm not able to get it to paper. I called my pessimistic friend and she was really angry by proxy. I was just down and pessimistic to be able to achieve a good work once in a time . But I was neither angry about the adviser neither about myself. One day or maybe two or three days of reflection and some talks to people who mean much to me were enough to gain some more motivation and do the whole thing again - or at least to start it again. I'm optimistic to do it better this time as well as I'm critical about how I'm doing it and how I could fit the requirements of my adviser. Besides: my contra part is still angry, but also supports me in being optimistic to finish the thesis before it gets a never ending project.

What I want to say is: Critical optimism sometimes needs a pessimistic contra part, reflection on your own and with people surrounding you. On the one hand they seem to be very important for the critical part, that you don't fall into naivety on the other hand they can also improve your optimism, suppositional they aren't too pessimistic at all. In my case my pessimistic friend helped me not to lose sight of the main aim. The optimistic part of doing things step by step is one of my fundamental characteristics - of course supported by talks with optimistic people. What I also want to mention as an important fact of optimism is that you feel the support of the people around you even if it is that they just listen or call you and ask - besides many other things they just tell you - how you are and if everything's alright. In other words: a caring surrounding also supports a critical optimism. But for myself the main aspect of critical optimism is reflection alone and with others.

A metaphor I really like in the context of optimism, is the one of the mouse in the bucket full of whipped cream. (maybe you know it from the film: "Catch me, if you can" - this is where I know it from) Instead of fearing to drown, it flails until the cream gets hard and the mouse can step out of the bucket. An optimistic mouse that is the only one to survive - step by step.

A song that also came to my mind - maybe because it is the actual single by Travis: "Something, anything".

I want to close this mail with wishing you all the best in increasing a critical optimism all around the world as I think it is a very useful view.

All the best

- an enthusiastic listener and viewer