Despite Charges Of Pessimism

I think I could often be taken as either a pessimist or a cynic, or both. I think it stems from my refusal to accept mass culture as inherently true. Perhaps most of these charges come from within, but nevertheless I feel them, and it is as often as I find quotes from Mr. Chesterton that I am once again encouraged in whatever you may wish to call my critical views of culture. Whatever it is, it is not pessimism.

Religion is always insisting on the shortness of human life. But it does not insist on the shortness of human life as the pessimists insist on it. Pessimism insists on the shortness of human life in order to show that life is valueless. Religion insists on the shortness of human life in order to show that life is frightfully valuable — is almost horribly valuable. Pessimism says that life is so short that it gives nobody a chance; religion says that life is so short that it gives everybody his final chance. In the first case the word brevity means futility; in the second case, opportunity.

– GK Chesterton

(my emphasis)