Be an optimist
Media
Part of The Young Citizen: The Magazine for Young People
- Title
- Be an optimist
- Language
- English
- Source
- Young Citizen, 7 (9) September 1941
- Year
- 1941
- Subject
- Optimism
- Conduct of life
- Cheerfulness
- Rights
-
- Fulltext
- SEPTEMBER, .1941 THE YOUNG CITIZE)'I 331 CHARACTER AND CITIZENSHIP SECTION BE AN OPTIMIST WHAT is optimism? It is taking the most hopeful view of things in life. The opposite of optimism is pessimism, which is the taking of. the least hopeful view of things. So an optimist is a person who takes the hopeful view, and a pessimist is one who takes the worst view. Which of these two do you aQd J. want to be? The hop~ of the earth is the optimi.st looking forward and believing _ that all will be well. The r e are pessimists everywhere, despairing of humanity, believing in the doom of all things. . The mind that understands the past will believe that great things can happen in the future. A few thousand years"have opened up the entire field of human knowledge; a few hundred years have "made us masters where we were slaves." What, then, is impossible in the hundreds and the thousands of years ahead of us? The promise of what man yet will do is. in the things that man has done, but beyo·nd all possi.ble comparison will be the wonder of the things to come. ·"To travel hopefully," says Robert Louis Stevenson, "is a better thing than to arrive." we· must travel hopefully. The difference between the optimist and the pessimist is · the difference between knowledge and ignorance. Just now· we may feel that evil holdstheworld, but all history of the past replies that . good will come. Liberty WI LL enlighten the world. If you believe this, you are an optimist. During the ages since man first appeared, h a s th e movement of the world in general been good or bad? If we are to be optimists, let us know why we believe. What is the foundation of optimism in a war-.torn world like that of today? It is based on history which shows us that alf ages have led ·men on to higher things and greater power, in spite of ·dark periods of evil like that of the present time. Good, of course. The present bad condition of some parts of the world is only temporary; good will surely triumph eventually. Believing this is optimism. At the present moment it.would seem that wrong has prevailed in Europe. -But this will not endure. Wrong can never (Pleau turn to page_ 336.) THE YOUNG CITIZEN GRIEG ~tory are·: BE AN OPTIMIST (Continued from page 326) Morning (Continued from page JJI) The m'usic was so lo:,,ely Anitra's Dance endure. We .must be opthat it became better liked Ase's Death timists and believe that than the 'play itself, and Sunshine Song right will again prevail, finally was arranged in two In the Hall of the Moun- and it will. Be an optimist. orchestral suites, giving the lain King Liberty will enlighten the whole story in a series of Cradle Song world. If you believe this, beautiful tone pictures. Try to.hear any of these or .you are an optimist. Some of them are in Nor- alf of them at your first op- And when the. en.tire way, and some in far-away portunity. world is again controlled Arabia or Egypt. In another composition by the right, in the new If you wonder how music .called March of the Dwarfs age that will come science can tell a story without Grieg tells us of the old will give us power, and words, you have 'only to fairy tales, and in the Nor- power will- give us leisure. listen to one of the most re- wegian Bridal Procession We are beginning to use markable stories eve~ told he tells of the quaint mar- the· power of the sun.· The in music-the Peer Gynt riage ~ustoms of the peasant optimist says, Who knows music by Grieg. Peer Gynt folk. 'In his compositions how far that power will is a Norwegian legend of entitled To Spring · and take us? a worthless fellow whose Butterfly he has caught the Forever great events are life was dissipated in wan- spirit of spring, the .song of in the making. There is dering from one land to the birds, and smell of grass never a day-even in the another and carousing, and flowers and trees. Grieg present terrible world conwhile his old mother Ase never wrote great sympho- dition-but what some good· waited in vain for his re- nies, but contented hims~lf seed is .sown that will bear turn. with composing beautiful unexpected fruit. There is During his wanderings, songs an·d smaller wor~s. no limit to th.e promise ofPeer Gynt niet an Oriental The Northland is a the futu~e, We have among dancer named Anitra who ·country of mountains and us even now men whose got all his possessions and fjords of snow and northern names will .endure when then left him. At another lights, of a rugged race of some c;>f the stars in the sky time he met the trolls and liberty-loving people. A have ceased to shine. The their king in a hall under deep and lasting love of the world will become better. the mountains. All these North warms the hearts of events are told in the music its people. These character- Right will conquer wrong. · · G · · h' Be an optimist and believe of Peer Gynt, 1stics neg expresses m 1s d this and do your tiny bit to Grieg chose. cert a· in music which remin· s us of events of the story to tell in the deep fjords, and dark bring it about. his music. Those which mountains of Norway, his you will enjoy the most native land. (you can hear them on a Grieg lived in a villa outphonograph), and which 1 side of his native city. Here carry the thread of the he died in 1907. SOMETHING TO THil:'K ABOUT I. What is an optimist? , 2. What is a pessimist?