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What is a Quirky Optimist? Pt. 1

So anyone who knows me and hears “Quirky Optimist” usually stops, has 2.5 seconds of thought and then lights up because it really fits!  But what does it mean?  Here is the first of many posts on “What is a Quirky Optimist” which will include references to influences on my humor, perspective, and philosophy on life.  So here are several things that you could call quirky influences on me, enjoy:

Monty Python troupe of the 70’s spawned so many great actors, I really appreciated their dry sense of humor.  Love these clips including the Ministry of Silly Walks  and the Constitutional Peasant.  (You can’t expect to wield supreme executive power because a watery tart threw a sword at you!)

The Tick was a 90’s comic about all the rejected superheroes and how they get assigned to “The City” to fight the villains (which seemed to be of equal quality).  This episode of The Little Wooden Boy had all the elements including a pretend side kick, the Swiss industrial spies which used gigantic Swiss army knives, and a giant whale who runs across the continent.  Does all this make sense, no.  But pretty entertaining.

The movie Student Bodies was a horror movie from 1981 which was actually more of a spoof on the saturated genre at the time.  Think of it like a Scary Movie before spoofs were really popular.  Much of this movie was absurd and I loved the sense of humor in it.  And it has a rubber chicken scene.

Other quirky things about me include my love of Subaru Boxer Engines, sleeper cars, red wine (due to my appreciation of Three Musketeers stories).  I had pet ferrets for a while, now just a shih-tzu with a very strong opinion on how things should go.  I make my own stir fry sauces (because they’re better that way!) and have at least 4 ways to make my own coffee.  I am a coffee snob by the way…

But also I’m an optimist because I choose to be.  I feel that every day we all have choices in how we act as well as respond to the world around us.  I feel like we can choose between optimism and pessimism.  If I thought we didn’t have free will I’d likely be a pessimist, however since I see there are choices and we can (to reasonable degrees) have control over our situations that it only leaves optimism as a responsible solution.  If we can make the most of what we have, likely we will get more than if we didn’t try at all.  I have a post I wrote on Berni Xiong’s site about how Muhammad Ali was an inspiration to keep swinging, and how it is possible to make change.  I’ve found in my life that if you try, you can make something happen.

 

 

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