As an optimist I often feel, whether engaging with media or talking with friends, that I have fallen on hard times. Fear and failure are the dominant tone (aside from the billionaires). Even close friends chide me for being hopeful-still. Despite the rise of authoritarian politics, multiple atrocities around the world, the next variant of the coronavirus, and the unchecked march to climate change catastrophe.
Yet there are many good things happening out there-they just don’t get so much attention. Human problems & scientific puzzles are finding solutions. Communities are pulling themselves out of despair. Individuals are overcoming challenges in new and imaginative ways. Not everything is going to rot, even where the news is less than completely positive.
The Optimist is intended to bring these stories to the fore not to promote complacency about the way things are but the reverse-to provide inspiration for action and change. The main common thread is diversity-the wide range of contexts, cultures, communities, domains of study, work, and research, where good things are happening.
