Bright Side by Sumit Paul-Choudhury: Shackleton’s rule for survival? Optimism
Bright Side Sumit Paul-Choudhury Canongate £20, 288pp
There is an old Russian parable about two frogs that are dropped into milk churns. The first, realising it can’t jump or climb to safety, abandons all hope and soon drowns. But the second, refusing to give in, thrashes until the milk in its churn is turned to butter, at which point it leaps out.
Always look on the bright side of life
The story is one of many in Sumit Paul-Choudhury’s all-embracing book about optimism and how effective it can be. Helen Keller, a deaf, blind and dumb girl, had the word ‘water’ traced on to one hand while her teacher let water run onto Keller’s other hand: ‘A little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living’.
Ernest Shackleton defied incredible odds to rescue himself and his companions from the Antarctic after their ship sank. In choosing those companions, he had said, ‘the quality I look for most is optimism: especially optimism in the face of reverses and apparent defeat. Optimism is true moral courage.’
Paul-Choudhury says he became an optimist the night his wife died from cancer – it ‘seemed like the only stance worth taking’. He couldn’t see how the alternatives – pessimism or the ‘fence-sitting’ option of realism – would ‘propel you through life… At least expecting more out of life primed you to get more out of life.’
There are rationalisations for looking on the bright side. One is the simple fact that you might as well have a go: ‘You miss every shot you don’t take.’ It has also been suggested that optimism is ‘a way of deluding ourselves about our abilities and prospects in order to better fool others. If you genuinely believe you’re a great catch, you’re likely to present yourself more convincingly to a potential partner.’ The counter argument is that pessimists can never be disappointed. This seems to be the approach taken by lawyers, a rare case of a profession where pessimists do better than optimists. Lawyers’ downbeat nature shows in the fact that they’re more than three times as likely as the general population to suffer from depression. But as Paul-Choudhury says, ‘Nobody wants a lawyer whose attitude towards the small print is “Ah, I’m sure it’ll be fine”.’
The book argues that optimism can, indeed should, be a practical force for good not just in our individual lives but in tackling the problems faced by mankind as a whole. Climate change, for instance: ‘There are innumerable worlds we can visualise… Our collective task is to find the best of these possible worlds, using our skill, luck and judgment… That means we need to stop trying to understand optimism, and start getting on with it.’
This book puts some interesting twists on existing theories. ‘An optimist says the glass is half full, a pessimist says it’s half empty. And while they’re arguing, a realist drinks it.’