optimism & optimization.txt
I was thinking about how optimism and optimization are very similar in their root words, etymologically, but also in a literal sense of their meanings, though not really used in the same type of contexts or conversations. — Optimism being an ideology of hope for the best to come, and optimization being the tangible methodology of pursuing the best to be had.
Today, the words themselves, as well as the concepts behind them are estranged, so much so that one of them seldom will lead you to think about the other. The only reason I did was because of my stray and wandering mind, selecting and echoing random words in my head for hours on end.
I take interest in the way that both have soured in their own ways under the frame of excess. For optimism, by becoming persistently associated with a bite of regret for having it, or with a form of positivity that erases the meaning of life’s challenges; Then optimization by becoming associated with the gradual loss of flaws and errors that imbue our surroundings with humanity.
It intrigues me that these two words, etymological kin, have diverged, evolved, and independently become their own distinct human practices; yet through all of it, they each still carry enough mutual DNA to reconverge at the point in which they sour. A souring due to the same exact cause; our obsessive unchecked urge to form attempted perfections that we then will become utterly averse to.
It makes me think of if there were a pair of twins separated at birth, out there in the world living their own lives. They have very similar faces but have entirely different worlds they occupy. Despite all of their agency, they both go on to fall ill and kill over from the same hereditary vulnerability.