the eternally optimistic pessimist

One thing that fascinates us Euro Trash about the land on the other side of the great pond is its inhabitant's eternal optimism. Always friendly, always open, always ready to take on the world and make it better in some mysteriously important way. It's not just fascinating. It’s also reasonably annoying. Like a layer of clammy cotton candy, clinging to you, suffocating you with sweetness – The Great Pink. If cluster bombs and Agent Orange wouldn't be included free of charge we (read: the rest of the world) would all die of diabetes.

Can we please have a little negativity served with our daily dose of the American Dream? I know, I know it's a great marketing ploy, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…" etc, etc. I am sorry if I am not exactly jugging the Kool-Aid, but that marketing ploy needs to be dismantled like that last truly great one "Build me a steeple in every village because I died for your sins". Americans seem to have a yen for great and simplistic tag lines.

I am bored by little kids that go out into the real world thinking it is their oyster. Thinking that if they just try hard enough, believe strong enough, smile big enough with their perfectly straightened teeth, and above all if they have a big enough supply of clammy cotton candy they can achieve anything. You wouldn't need to get up so many times if you wouldn't try to fall on your ass in the first place.

My personal problem is that somehow now The Great Pink is starting to cling to me in copious amounts. I can't hardly wait for my next trip to the motherland and hear people tell me with their slightly nasal pessimism "Du schaust ja wirklich schon wie ein Ami aus!" The fact that I talk, dress, act and walk like one is implied. One hates to be rude. Strangely enough my accent still works over here, in the home of the brave and somewhat free (for instructions on how to score by accent, instead of by accident, email me at inurkrautdreams@wonderland.com). Somehow I have the pleasure of the worst of both worlds. Americans subject me to a continuous stream of vitriol against their own inanity – stop drinking the Euro Trash Cool Aide guys, be happy with your historical ineptitude. And Euro Trash, when they deign to come down of their imperial trash heap, hand a helping heap of jealousy and forgotten glory on my poor confused global citizen's head.

Let's be serious for a moment. A short one I promise. Let us compare negativity with positivity. One forces a silly grin on our face, the other helps us expect the worst. One makes us think that strength of conviction is all success expects of us, the other drowns us in expectations of doom. One makes us fall down and get up all the bloody time, and the other makes us lie down pretty much from the get-go.

You see, seriousness is probably the bane of all great marketing tag lines. If people would take the tag line seriously when it is first circulated they would laugh their heads off. They would only be too happy to scream at the top of their lungs "Take my bloody wretched", and "Go ahead fool, crucify yourself for me". But since nobody really does that, the tag line quietly lives on, growing little roots in our heads and sneaking in unrecognized. Making us drink the Kool-Aid in little daily doses instead of big gulps of The Great Pink.

You may think what a silly man I am to even question whether optimism or pessimism is better. But let me posit this: "Does the universe care?" If you would please follow my circuitous route to this statement in the following:

I like being Euro Trash with a cotton candy coating. Sort of like a bitter pill served inside a marshmallow to unsuspecting little ones. I like that my mother didn't tell me that if I just believed hard enough, one day I would dunk like Michael Jordan. That way I didn't fall on my face trying to jump over my 6'5" balling buddy. I like that my father didn't tell me that if I just studied hard enough, I could become a brilliant scientist. That way I didn't get tangled up in a web of string theory. Instead a healthy dose of realism was served in my home and hearth on a daily basis. This is especially useful when I examine my life and prospects, because it means I don't have to buy a cane for the bad hip I would sport by now from falling on my ass all the time. But, hey that getting up sure builds character. On a side note let me ask who needs character when one can buy it at the next Mercedes Dealer? But wait, that's an American precept as well.

I know it’s confusing. If my parents would have just told me often enough that I can do anything that I put my mind to I would go out, take a quick community college class on sociology and really examine this oxymoronic labyrinth for you. They didn't, so I won’t.

But I also like telling my American friends that I am going to study sociology and write a comparative book on historical marketing tag lines and their impact on dialectical discourses in relation to what are commonly known as positrons and electrons (does the Universe care). I like it because they will not blink an eye, they will not look at me askance to consider whether I have lost my mind, they will not LOL me into the ground. Instead they will say "I think you can do anything you put your mind to." It’s fairly addictive to have other people convince me of my greatness, instead of having to do it myself all day long. Who is the socialist bastion now, I ask? This constant giving of love, support and smoke up my ass is decidedly communist.

I think I just convinced myself to decide I will worry about the cane and the Mercedes later, when I finally sell my bestseller called "String Theory and YOU".

By now it should be obvious that my circuitous route is exactly that, a circle. There is no logic that governs pessimism or optimism. In equal measures they both suck and they are both useful. Meeting in the middle seems as impossible, if desirable, as Atlantis chilling in the middle of the great pond.

I can only suggest to stop drinking everyone's stupid Kool-Aid and instead to find the happy medium for yourself.