My wife is an optimist. If she weren’t, obviously, she wouldn’t have married me, and things would have been very different. Oh, yes, they would.
I too have always considered myself an optimist in a general sense, but when I say this, she laughs. I guess the sense in which I am an optimist is too general to be of much use in daily life. I believe in life after death, for instance, and while this can and should colour what I am doing every day, you can’t always tell.
My wife’s optimism is sometimes frustrating. She actually believes that you can find a Sent folder in Outlook Mail, for instance, and she almost convinced me that one of the methods described on the web for finding it might actually work. To a realist like me, the fact that there are so many methods described on the web for finding it is an indication that something is basically wrong with Outlook Mail, but of course we all know that.
Why Outlook Mail finds it necessary to hide the Sent folder is beyond me. Possibly because it is designed by technicians, and not people. This is what will happen on a global level if Artificial Intelligence ever gets beyond playing chess. All folders will be hidden, and we will eventually starve.
Happily, I am not worried, because I have a Mac, which works well in adverse weather conditions, especially rain. And you can find the Sent folder.
Sorry, I got a bit distracted there, because my wife raised this problem with Outlook Mail (again) in the optimistic belief that I could fix it. Sometimes I can fix things, but not alien technology.
As a couple we have a few problems with time, but of course that is much akin to alien technology too. I work out how long it will take to get somewhere, my wife sort of agrees on a time to leave and is prepared to leave about ten minutes later than that, while I stand around in the kitchen trying to keep my blood pressure down.
To me, leaving late like this seems to be asking for trouble, because people drive so slowly nowadays that nobody can get anywhere in a reasonable time. But she is never worried, and quite often, against all the odds, we do get there in time, which is pretty annoying.
I am not complaining about my wife’s optimism. It is one of her many endearing features, like her beauty, her compassion and her forgiveness, and her willingness to let me choose a time to leave.
I am not leaving her, of course. I am realistic enough to know that. Why would I? She is optimistic about the whole thing. She also supports Norwich City.