Day 95 Morning - Rob Brezsny's Free Will Astrolgy And The Difference Between Cynicism And Pessimism

Rob Brezsny's Free Will Astrology has been a huge influence on me, ever since I first read him in the now defunct Village View back in the late 1990s. Here is a link to Brezsny's Free Will Astrology site. When I read his horoscopes, they are not about predicting the future, but about challenging my perspective in regards to how I am approaching and perceiving the present. Rob Brezsny consistently challenges his readers to be positive and to see life as an adventure to be engaged and valued and loved.

These days it is so easy for me to fall into pessimism. I do my best to avoid cynicism because I have never forgotten how Albert Camus defined the difference between cynicism and pessimism. Camus believed that the difference is that pessimism implies hope. With cynicism, there is no hope. The cynics drink their extra dry martinis on the wayside of resignation, caring nothing about other people and embracing with a dead humor the wasteland that is to come. In contrast, pessimists see the reality of the world with all of its inequality and warts and even horrors, but they have faith that things can change. They have the hope that through action we can revolutionize and improve our world.

Albert Camus Smokes A Cigarette And Beholds A Wondrous Life

This idea is perhaps best expressed by the Italian socialist politician Pietro Nenni (1891-1980), whose daughter died in Auschwitz. In the twilight of his life, he wrote in a letter to a colleague :

"My dear friend, life should be looked at with the pessimism of intelligence, with the critical sense of doubt, but also with the optimism of the will.  When there's a will, nothing is fatal, nothing is inevitable, nothing is unchangeable.  
          I told you at the beginning: I believe in man.  Man the creator of his own destiny."


Yes, if we embrace the will and believe in change, it is incredible what we can actually accomplish.  As to Mr. Rob Brezsny's Horoscope for this coming week, here we go below...                                                                                                                                  

"Try to be surprised by something every day," advises Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his book Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. That's an inspirational idea for everyone all the time, but especially for you Scorpios right now. This is the week of all weeks when you have the best chance of tinkering with your rhythm so that it will thrive on delightful unpredictability. Are you brave enough to capitalize on the opportunity? I think you are. Concentrate your attention on cultivating changes that feel exciting and life-enhancing.

I am not sure how I can cultivate such changes this week, but I will do my best to try and follow the road not taken. I love that poem by Robert Frost, and I actually rewrote it back in the day as a homage to the original. Below is my rewrite, and I shall cultivate change by writing poetry and seeing what comes from my pen and believing that the rash will pass and those distant dreams will edge a little closer today.

The Future Not Taken

            — after Robert Frost

Two futures diverged in the word should,

And sorry I could not ignore both

And stay perfectly still, long I stood

And sagged into one as far as I could

To where it bent past a childhood growth;

Then took the other, not quite as fair,

But having perhaps the better claim,

Because it allowed you not to care;

Though as for that, the failing there

Had worn us out about the same,

And both in morning equally lay

In hopes no fears had cancered black.

Oh, I kept the faith for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever turn back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere pages and pages hence:

Two futures diverged in "He Should", and I—

I took the one without the why,

And from there rose all our diffidence.