فن التشاؤم | الدحيح

Hey, groom, people are waiting outside,

why did you lock yourself here?

Make them go, I don't want to get married.

What are you saying?

I finally got my sister to marry you,

I don't want some stranger sharing my car.

Forget about it, Mokhtar.

-I don't want to die. -Look, I know...

-Abeer can be annoying... -Very.

She doesn't look that pretty,

and has a stinky personality but you can handle it.

-It's not to the extent of death. -It's not about Abeer...

It's okay.

I'll handle her.

But two days ago...

Om Mohamed gave me a coffee reading...

she told me that If I married Abeer,

-I'll have Lobna and Samir... -Good.

And when Lobna and Samir grow up,

they'll either get into a language school or an international one,

and then Samir will go to college and graduate,

and starts telling me he wants to get married,

first I'll refuse but then his mother will convince me and I'll agree,

and Lobna will object of course,

she should be getting married first because she's the oldest...

Of course she should. Lobna is a trouble-maker.

But words are throw around here and there with Lobna,

during that Samir will eat a banana, then throw the peel, and I take a step back

so I slip on the peel and die.

Do you see it now?

I don't want to die.

First of all, you shouldn't believe Om Mohamed.

Because coffee reading is a superstition?

Of course a superstition, but also she talks way too much.

Yeah she does talk too much.

Think about it man, when you marry Abeer

You can have Salma instead of Lobna,

and Mounir instead of Samir.

Or not have Samir at all.

That's right, how was I thinking like that?

Welcome back to senses, I'm proud of you.

I won't die of a random banana peel.

-Call the officiant. -Right away.

Abeer!

Hello, my dear viewers,

welcome to a new episode of ElDaheeh.

If we lived.

On the first of January 2023,

and while the world was trying to be optimistic about the new year,

and some are making a 2022 recap,

and the tarot reader predicts events,

and everyone was happy.

The researcher Paul Fairie, of University of Calgary,

posts a twitter thread with pictures of newspapers

that date back to 1923, a century ago.

These newspapers had predictions about how the world would be in 2023.

Our grandparents predicted we would work 4 hours a day,

and live in a spotless town, a clean town without any pollution.

And indeed we do work 4 hours a day...

but after the shift.

And we don't do it because we're employees,

but because the company is family

and the CEO assured me that we'll shine together.

But then he did shine and I kept disappearing into the background.

And about that clean spotless town,

It's very true.

Our grandparents predicted that the average life of man would range from 100-300!

because they assumed we would have ended aging diseases.

And when it comes to wars, don't worry my friend,

all predictions said that wars would be wireless, just like PUBG.

While you still ask your girlfriend

"what's wrong" and she says "nothing",

our grandparents predicted that by 2023

we'll be communicating without speaking, mind to mind telepathy.

But before you think that they only saw the full half of the glass,

let me tell you that this isn't the full image.

Because during the last century, they also saw the empty half of the glass,

and predicted that the world would end tragically more than 7 times.

The oldest one was 1910, when Halley's comet passed by Earth,

and people called it "Evil eye of the sky".

They even started saying goodbye to their loved ones and wear gas masks,

and there was mass worry and concern

that the comet would hit Earth.

But the most recent time humans predicted the end of the world

was in 2012, when according to a Reuter's survey, 10% of people

believed a myth that said that the Maya calender system

would end after 5125 years, which was on the 21st of December 2012.

Then what, Abo Hmeed?

Oh my friend, you lived it, I don't want to spoil the events.

This was predicted by the famous film "2012",

that when its trailer was released in 2009

created a mass panic among people.

Because they did believe it was a beginning to the end of the world.

In the middle of tons of inquires, NASA had to

publish an article reassuring people,

'It's a film people, not real'.

If we asked ourselves how will the world be in 3023,

a thousand years from now.

People are most likely to answer the same way

as our grandparents who predicted our life now.

Some people would be optimistic about a happy and welfared future,

while others would be pessimistic that there wouldn't be a world anymore.

And this drives us to the episode's question,

what's optimism and what's pessimism?

The scientist Martin Seligman says that the most noticeable feature in man

is being a creature of the future.

Meaning, a creature that leaves its present moment and predicts future scenarios,

and based on that scenario that didn't even happen yet,

he acts in the present moment.

As Martin says, Homosapiens...

deserve to be called Homo-prospectus,

which is derivated from the future.

And that's because all humans' behaviors now,

depend on their predictions of the future.

If the prediction is positive, we call it optimism.

But if the prediction is scary, we call it pessimism.

In a study published in 2013,

titled "Neural Basis of Optimism and Pessimism",

regarding the right and left hemispheres,

and how each hemisphere is responsible for different functions.

The study says that the human brain acts as if it's in half,

just as if.

A part of it is optimistic, and focuses on opportunities, positives, and risks,

which belongs to the left hemisphere.

While another part is pessimistic, that focuses on negatives and cautions,

and this belongs to the right hemisphere.

But Abo Hmeed, it doesn't feel like my brain is in half.

No, my friend, your brain isn't in half,

your voice in your head is just one,

thanks to the Corpus Callosum,

which is millions of neurofibers,

that gather information from all over the brain and fuses all these voices into one,

it gathers the information from the two hemispheres till they agree on something,

and unifies your view on that agreement.

The study also found that man goes through pessimism and optimism the same way,

meaning that you're neither optimistic nor pessimistic, you're both.

The switch between optimism and pessimism occurs according to time and place

and according to which one of them the brain would decide to save you,

and that's when it acts with it.

The psychologist Robert Leahy, says that man during the wilderness age,

"...evolved towards negative bias."

Meaning, to always be on the err side of caution.

Imagine that you're living in a cave, and you hear sounds from the bushes,

do you leave the deer you're cooking and the cave you spent months looking for

and run away?

or do you sit still, be optimistic,

and say it could be nothing like a monkey jumping around

and it's okay there's no danger.

Robert here says the pessimism motto is: "You can always be the one"

Meaning, you can always be unlucky enough.

If it's a 99% possibility that these sounds are just from wind,

then you'll be that 1% that it's a bear coming to eat you.

So you would need to leave everything you have and run away.

That's why the human brain is instilled

with a group of pessimistic phobias

that have a common pattern of being related to nature,

like fear of heights, snakes, and water.

Some studies say that the fear of water

is felt by infants once they're put in water,

even though they never saw a sea nor do they know its dangers,

they didn't see someone drown or anything.

The pessimism here is a response where the brain tries to

evade the disaster before it happens.

through imagining it, and preparing a scenario that prevents it from happening.

Our grandparents who had genes making them pessimistic

used to always get ready for life and nature's dangers.

Pessimism here was saving them.

But if they were optimistic, and said that these trees moving

were just a monkey or birds,

while the creature making these sounds turned out to be a tiger, then R.I.P!

On the other hand, the researcher Tali Sharot

says that if the disaster already happened

the brain changes its strategy,

and deals with it by optimism bias.

This happened when she conducted an experiment and made people

where she made people dig into memories for disasters they went through

and then imagine future events happening.

She said that although this remembering process

has to do with the past

and imagining has to do with the future,

both processes depended on the Hippocampus.

When she continued with the experiment, she found that

the people under experiment

expressed the things they remembered from the past

and the things they imagined about the future

both in the same way, and more biased towards optimism.

As if, as she describes, a Hollywood director walked in

altered the memories of disasters, and the bad memories,

to crop out the hard times.

'set those aside'

Not just that, he altered their imagination and prediction for the future

and removed the obstacles.

As if you have a watermelon that you made an effort cutting it.

Tali says that this Hollywood director

that arranged these things in your head,

is our neurological memory system,

that the studies proved it as not just a memory card,

that preserves the past details as they are,

no, it's a much smarter system.

Its job is to function during disasters

alter the details and rebuild them,

it re-narrates what happened, and imagines what will happen,

in a more optimistic form.

When the brain looks through this filter, towards the past and the future,

things become more flexible,

especially after the disaster happens.

In short, my friend, I know you're in circles,

that without our pessimism

we would have died and vanished.

But without our optimism,

we wouldn't have moved on nor evolved.

Science here tells us, that a successful life

-as you know-

requires a balance between pessimism and optimism.

This balance is set by the brain,

depending on whether the disaster already happened or will do.

Till now, our talk about optimism and pessimism

is mainly predictions about the future that the brain swiftly navigates.

But, my friend, what if...

our desires intertwined with our expectations?

That's dangerous, Abo Hmeed, desire and expectations?

Mamma mia.

Imagine that you have a final tomorrow,

and as usual you didn't study anything.

Here, the logical expectation is that you'll fail,

no matter how much you want to pass.

And instead of having the pessimistic expectation

push you into studying for the exam,

to at least study whatever makes you pass or read anything on your commute,

it'll get you to leave it all and sleep.

And said to yourself that you'll pass because your brain wants to.

Your brain here lied to itself,

and you convince yourself somehow that you'll pass,

so your brain would relax and doesn't get stressed.

But actually, because you weren't prepared, you'll most likely fail

not just because you didn't study,

but also because you practiced Wishful Thinking.

-What, Abo Hmeed? -Wishful thinking.

-Dish full? -Wishful, my friend.

According to Webster's dictionary, Wishful thinking is...

where you're adding to the reality,

what you wish to be true.

But let me tell you that expecting worst case scenario or pessimism despite being hard

but they keep you grounded to reality.

Because wishful thinking isn't just misplaced optimism,

but it's a wish that detaches you from reality.

In your case, that will make you fail.

But in other cases, it could destroy the world.

Let me give you some examples.

In politics, in an article for The Guardian in 2007,

titled "Blind Optimism",

The Guardian took a look back on its old headlines,

specifically during the thirties when Hitler was starting out.

When the newspaper saw the old headlines,

it described itself as "Blind Optimism".

Because they described Hitler at the time as light-weight,

"Not a man, but a megaphone."

They didn't see him as a man, just a guy with words,

a light-weight political clown.

Words without actions.

I don't need to tell you what happened, but it was words, actions, and 60 million victims.

Europe's optimism after World War I,

that after what they saw during the war

humans can never start a new world war,

specially after the tragedies.

We don't want another war.

There's a wish here...being wishful.

So we project that wish on reality,

who's that mustache guy talking whom we should take seriously?

and deal with him as if he can put Europe and the world through war?

Optimism here wasn't built on calculations,

but on a wish to not repeat the same horrifying time,

the wish that prevented people from seeing Hitler's truth.

That's why Mr. Churchill

who was the first leader to stop and defeat Hitler,

would have his first speech say,

"I have nothing to offer, but blood, toil, tears, and sweat."

We can fight with other things, not necessarily body fluids.

It was a pessimistic speech that snapped Europe back to reality.

The smell in the speech snapped them back.

This is what they should have seen from the beginning,

to make it easier to change.

Of course it's easy to say this today,

but we like to blame peoples for their choices.

Or else how do we get content, my friend?

If we won't judge people and the past,

then why make episodes? I like how we do it.

When it comes to economy,

let me remind you of someone you know,

who decided to drop out of college and be an entrepreneur,

and whenever someone tells him to study he says that Bill Gates didn't graduate,

and Abbas El-Akkad only had elementary and all that.

That's when the writer Morgan Housel appears and strikes back at your friend saying

that Bill Gates didn't just believe in himself, was optimistic so he succeeded,

but there was a hidden side to this optimistic smiley entrepreneur,

which is a pessimism closing in on paranoia.

This made him, at the beginning of Microsoft, keep liquidity

enough to sustain the company for 12 months without profit.

It's top notch pessimism to set his preparations

on not gaining any profit for a year.

It was a plan that Bill Gates commented on in 2007,

to be extremely important.

Why? Because most of his employees were husbands, fathers, and mothers.

So while he can fail and try again,

these people's kids may starve if things fail,

they don't have the welfare of trying.

There was a Pakistani study in 2015,

about the psychological effect of taking economic decisions,

and found that many consumers suffer from Optimism Bias,

which makes them focus on profit only during investments.

They don't see the obstacles of the market.

On the individual scale, this can get you bankrupt.

But on the collective scale, it'll bankrupt the entire world.

In her book, "Bright Sided: How positive thinking is undermining America"

The writer Barbara Ehrenreich says...

I hope if Barbara heard me saying her name wrong,

to not get upset.

She said that one of the reasons of the 2008 financial crisis,

is the positive thinking.

Positive thinking is the reason, Abo Hmeed?

Wait, my friend.

This thinking convinced millions of people

to drown themselves in disastrous debts

due to an optimistic view that the future would be better.

This -and I don't wanna spoil- didn't happen back in 2008.

One might say, but Abo Hmeed, predictions once said man could never fly or go to space

All of these were once wishes that belonged to fairy tales.

If we hadn't followed that over-optimistic thinking,

we wouldn't have turned it into real-life inventions.

Actually, my friend, this view carries a lot entailed.

-Has a lot what? -Entailed.

In a study in 2014 titled,

"Effects of optimism on creativity",

it assured that optimism is the most important factor

that helps invention and innovation.

But my friend, that's not the full image.

The study said that optimistic thinking is unable to see the threats

that the inventions pose,

and that is the pessimist thinking role.

Optimism would make you invent a car faster than the wind,

but -and that's the importance of pessimism-

the pessimism would make you install brakes, airbags, and seat belts.

And the freshener too, Abo Hmeed?

No, that's what Churchill took for the sweat.

What's interesting is that lots of these safety inventions

like windshields, fire-escape, and lifeboats

were thought of and invented by women.

Women -as you might expect-

are more pessimistic than men.

This happens in our homes.

If you're an hour late,

your father would say you're a wild one,

while your mother starts to imagine a scenario

Nighttime- Highway,

you're passing the road and not looking

and a truck hits you so you go up in the air

and come down when a second truck hits you

and slam on the ground,

then you see 2kg of heroin so you sniff them all

while you're injured and in kidney failure,

and your nasty friends are suspects in a murder,

and she's seeing you behind bars in court

because you married a girl in secret,

who was in the last truck.

While she finishes all these scenarios,

she sees you back home safe and sound so she gets disappointed.

Going off of this point, women around the world

saw next to every new invention

possibilities of certain death that they need to avoid.

Anyway, the effect of wishful thinking

appears in our resistance towards safety inventions.

Because they are precautions that subtly says

that their fictional optimistic wish towards the world

can turn into a nightmare.

Seat-belts were invented in 1959 by VOLVO,

the company could have kept the invention to itself.

They invented it and their brand is marketed as the best in safety.

But VOLVO passed down the ownership rights and patent for the seat belt,

considering it an essential safety precaution

that any car company should use, to prevent car accidents deaths.

And according to statistics, the seat belt did decrease car accident death percentages

by around 50%.

Although the seat belt is clearly important,

it wasn't legally imposed in the USA

up until 1984.

They invented it in 1959 but was imposed 20 years later.

Up until 1996, most of the Americans refuse to wear it,

And you, without that nagging alarm sound you wouldn't have worn it.

There's also the flight recorder,

which is the one I consider the most pessimistic.

It's what predicts if the plane crashes,

and tries to record the reasons of the fall.

The invention first received backlash when suggested by David Warren.

'You wanna make us die'

Mind your business.

The airplane is falling and I'm dying,

and you want to eavesdrop.

The flight recorder was described as means of spying not safety,

Almost all safety engines were resisted,

because their existence always reminds us that the worst can happen,

and that we can be wrong,

As the scientist Ajit Varki said, that humans' prediction for their deaths,

cross paths with their imagination of the future.

That's why they try to avoid that realization,

which sometimes had an expensive price of death.

Your subconscious mind thinks that it won't wear the seat belt

because it doesn't matter to you.

Guess what? now you're more likely to die.

Think about it and wear it.

This was confirmed by a 2004 study,

that talked about the prevention precautions during SARS,

and found that defensive pessimism,

helped patients to heal more than optimism.

Because the more realistic the patients expectations are,

especially in pandemics and all,

the more the patient preserves the magical orb.

One would ask, Abo Hmeed, you said that this wishful thinking

is to see reality through our desires and wishes.

But, Abo Hmeed, you didn't say how this bias

turns into a culture?

How entire societies could be optimistic,

to the point of disregarding huge disasters,

like Hitler, the Oppression, or the reckless inventions.

Where's the start of it all?

At which point did humans let go of this pessimism and life lit up?

Actually, this is deeper than you think.

In the 18th century with the beginning of the Industrial revolution,

that will transform the world from traditional societies to modern ones.

For example, in a traditional society there's a higher royal class,

and a lower class of farmers.

Rich and poor.

If you were born at the time in the lower class, you would always be there,

and if you were born a prince, you would always be one.

Suddenly, the industrial revolution happens

along with amazing discoveries and inventions.

Discovering steam and electrical energy, and factories are built

that would need labor men leaving the countryside to live by the factories.

That's when big populated cities appeared

who aren't too poor but aren't too rich,

the middle class.

This new class started using the inventions

like electricity, lights, and cars.

Inventions that increased the opportunities of this class's kid

in learning and dreaming about a better life.

Most importantly, this class turned into an elevator,

where the poor can go up,

and into the rich world.

Sometimes he rests in the middle class

and then gets promoted up.

That's why in modern societies,

man tried optimism for the first time.

It was an odd feeling, to be poor

but do things that makes me rich?

It wasn't there before.

That the birth of someone in a certain class

wasn't no longer a life sentence.

But through learning opportunities and new inventions

going to the city, and to the doctor,

he can transcend to a higher class,

based on his effort.

And suddenly there was an optimistic space with opportunities.

Then what happened, as called by psychologists,

was demonization of pessimism.

'Be optimistic man, the future is all good"

The world was offering all these opportunities.

Pessimism, in that space,

would entail you're a slow and lazy person..

Roll up your sleeves and be ambitious.

Actually that's not exactly what happened.

Although everything points to optimism,

but the sociologist Emile Durkheim,

said that the suicide rate in our modern place

became 10 times more than the old traditional.

The scientist were more shaky on our wedding.

10 times more than the pessimist aura.

What happened, Abo Hmeed?

Industrial revolution as well.

It did evolve into time,

and made you able to get education, and healthcare,

You can go up in classes,

that made you dream bigger.

But as the philosopher Alain de Botton said,

that the old traditional two-classed society

without opportunities or ambition

had only one quality,

that man was free,

free from competition and his own ambition.

In that society, you can't tell a farmer

that he's a loser or poor because he's lazy

because everyone knows society is strictly class-divided

and it'll never allow him to be rich, no matter how hard he worked or prayed.

No matter what, everyone accepts their fate.

That's why, when a year goes by for them without drought, plague, or war,

They'd be satisfied, like it's the best year ever.

"Thank god I'm not dead"

A society where normal life is the perfect life.

Meanwhile, modern society, or meritocracy as de Botton called it,

says that you can do anything,

you can move up the social ladder, get a job you like,

and get a lot of money, because you will succeed.

And that makes you fit and worthy to marry any girl you like.

Unlike old times, when you had to inherit your father's job,

and marry someone from the same class.

No! You're worthy of everything.

With one condition, to be ambitious and hard-working enough.

And if success is the main front of our modern society,

then the other side of the coin is darker.

What? darker?

Because if you don't do all that, then failure is all yours.

Simply, there'll be no society-hanger to put your failures on

as a just "life happens" situation.

Man found himself suddenly with a controller,

and in control of everything that happens in his life.

And instead of being a poor farmer whose worst problems were with another farmer,

fighting over water, or crops,

and maybe a sudden drought that ruins both of their lands,

and instead of having a cousin as your enemy,

the one your mom wishes were you.

Now the whole world is that cousin.

Suddenly, you have to compare yourself, not just to people around you,

but to Ctrl+A all the world.

That's why, man in the modern world-bless his heart-

broke down under that big responsibility,

and that pressuring-competition that if he left, it would make him a loser.

As long as you don't have a thing to brag about on Instagram, then you're out.

Here, the depression and suicide numbers started to rise, my friend.

Alian de Botton says that when modern societies started facing modern problems,

problems weren't faced by traditional society, like The Great Depression in 1929.

Suddenly, Suicide rates dropped back to traditional society rates.

That's because it was the first time people experienced something like the old times.

The old disastrous times.

A collective failure that can't be a single person's responsibility.

Or as de Botton said:

Now failure is not all mine,

because there is a huge global event that effects a lot of people,

and I'm just a single person.

Very strange!

Suicide rates decrease at times like war and economic depression.

Soldiers, according to studies, don't commit suicide during war.

They commit it afterwards.

You might ask: "Does this mean that modern society is evil, and we should avoid it?

Meanwhile the old society was warm and tasty?

I have the right to be ambitious, Abo Hmeed.

I don't like the only two classes thing.

I want to get the job I want, and marry the girl I want."

My friend, you deserve to have all that.

The problem isn't you, the problem is expectations.

In modern society, optimism isn't an expectation any more.

It became wishful thinking.

A wish that society forces you to believe,

and after you do, you must make it true.

And if you don't, you're a failure.

Alian de Botton says: "We've built a modern world,

where ordinary life isn't good enough anymore."

It's not enough to be healthy, or have enough money,

or have a more secure social and medical status.

A life unimaginable by your ancestors.

But it was ruined by an optimism rule that says

as long as you have more potential, then stopping makes you a loser.

Run! Run!

You're not a still tree!

That curse still lives on to this day.

For example, if we compare your current life to the first ever man

that tried modern society in 1800,

you'll find that one out of ten was educated.

However, now eight out of ten are educated.

At the time, 43% of newborns died in just five years, due to illnesses.

Now this percentage is about 4%.

This graph in front of you shows the poverty line in 1820 and 2015.

My friend, I know you're tired and you work hard in life,

but believe me when I tell you that today

you're living a much easier and comfortable than the best person in 1800.

However, are you really happy, my friend?

Do you have less pressures, more free time, satisfied with your life?

According to statistics made in 2020, suicide is

the second leading cause of death in the youth from 25 to 34 years old.

Because, and apologies to you, your satisfaction, and your pressures,

all that isn't enough anymore in modern society.

Because you can't just suddenly stop the race to enjoy everything.

That way you're not ambitious, and will be branded as a failure.

De Botton says that it's a matter of expectations.

Our expectations as a group living in this era

is so much higher than what we actually need to be happy.

Meanwhile, only a little under 5% of people

will be like Bill gates, Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk,

who are on top of the personal success race.

And just so you know, even those aren't happy with their lives.

Money doesn't buy happiness.

*The 5%*: "Don't know who told you that,

but I just bought a happiness with money."

This culture forces the other 95% to never stop grinding,

in order to join the very successful 5%,

or else they'll be failures.

Even though, the 5% are just the exception rather than the rule.

Man doesn't have to go back to the old society to get his happiness back.

However, all we need is to bring back balance.

Balance, my friend, between optimism and pessimism in expectations.

In opposition to the excessive optimism that turned into a prophecy

that has to be fulfilled in every aspect,

and that pressures people to the point of depression and suicide,

we have to add a bit of pessimism to the pot.

We should expect to not be the first in the race, and that's fine.

In fact, it's very normal.

You don't have to be Zuckerberg to be happy.

It's enough to be a man...

or a woman, just the pun.

To be happy, you don't have to be Elon Musk.

You just have to be without a mask.

"How I wish everyone was like a clock,

because it only has one face."

Maybe your own happiness depends on a much simpler lifestyle.

And there is no pressure to live with these expectations,

or to feel like a failure just because you decided to leave the race.

Whether you win or lose, my friend, you're beautiful.

Be optimistic, and try to work hard,

but also have realistic expectations.

And know that as long as you're not in the Marvel cast,

then you're not a superhero.

You can't do everything.

And you're not supposed to be everything.

Remember that your ancestors in the old times consider your current lifestyle

one that wasn't available even for their kings.

You, sitting in your room with water, electricity, and internet,

are better off than the best of kings back then.

Dude, you have ElDaheeh!

You're living in the same era as him.

Listen to the words of the Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci,

who said in his relationship with optimism and pessimism

that the perfect state of mind is balance.

Or in his words: "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will."

When the mind views things realistically without hopes and dreams effecting it,

It feels more optimistic that with stronger will, it can change things,

because it's finally starting off on the right path,

while viewing itself and everyone around with the correct perspective.

Even scientifically, pessimism of the mind tries to stop disasters.

Meanwhile, optimism of the will comes after disasters, in order to get back up.

In the end, my friend, I hope that if you're pessimistic,

this episode makes you optimistic.

And if you're optimistic,

this episode makes you pessimistic.

But, if you have a mix of the two,

then please make me one as well.

Last, but not least, you're not required to change the world.

However, you are required

to watch the old episodes and the new ones, look at the sources,

and subscribe, if you're on YouTube, please!

Go on, my friend, you don't have to change the world.

You just have to change your clothes from your blood, toil, tears, and sweat.

Calm down, Churchill!

Just kidding.

And as the singer Shaheen says:

'Not today. No, not today.

We don't have to change the world today."