Choosing Optimism

For the last month, on and off, I have been struck by the determinism in people's speech. Certainly, events emerge in the news that seem to point to one direction or another, but how we decide what that direction is seems more guided by our own sense of the future than by the events themselves. Yesterday evening, for instance, two completely different people in separate conversations confirmed to me that our next presidential elections would lead to regime change--it seems like wanton optimism, but is it?
I am not saying there is no room for pessimism. The Karl Rove situation is already forgotten. We're gearing up for the confirmation battle over our next Supreme Court justice. And then there's CAFTA. Soothsayers for the negative are warning us of the dire future we are building for ourselves. To say nothing of the ongoing quagmire of Iraq. But I notice that the desire to say "everything is going to pot" seems to pre-exist political and ethical crises. This is the same determinism that, 200 years ago, made a little-known French philosopher bent on proving the existence of God state that Cavaillon melons have ridges down the sides because they are intended by God to be shared within families (that would be Bernardin de Saint Pierre, he must have been awfully sweet though).
One thing that influences whether I'm in an optimistic or pessimistic orientation is the time-scale I am operating in when news hits me. On a day to day basis, there seems to be little improvement. But certainly today, as I was thinking about 2500+ years of recorded history, I can't say that the human condition has not improved, especially for my gender. The folks I know who feel that all history is leading to degradation live in cushy homes with little famine, disease or wolves to contend with. Let alone having to beat their clothing on river rocks or grow and mill their own wheat.
What interests me even more in this little mental meandering today are the consequences of choosing optimism vs. pessimism. What I note is that holding fast to the belief that life sucks (and then you die) taxes mental and physical health (almost self-imposed punishment) and certainly fulfills the prophecy of doom. And so I continue to contemplate the perhaps necessary delusion of optimism: maybe, just maybe, it would be good to get into a discipline of believing in the future, of searching for evidence of good, of choosing a radical policy of optimism even in the face of daily negativity that magnifies the evils we observe.
The nice thing about a blog is that I needn't have a fully developed point, or even any organization about it. This is just where I am. Like blinking in the middle of a snapshot.