Realistic Optimism is a form of Humanism

The other day I apologized to my son for climate change. The climate is already changing. We are already preparing for it and our decisions are affected by it.  As a parent, I was feeling bad that I hadn't done enough.

The same is true of school shootings. He has a heavily armed guard at his school because the threat of school shootings is - real. And again, we haven't done enough or anything really to reduce that threat.

But then I started talking about how lucky he is really. He lives in a time when the water is basically clean in most places. Yes, we have lead problems in several places, but when I grew up clean water wasn't an expectation.

We had rivers catching on fire when I grew up. We had sewage spilling directly on the beach.

I grew up where the air was so bad - were couldn't play outside some days (smog days), the rain had acid in it. And we had to do duck and cover drills in case of nuclear attack.

My son has clean air. Clean water. And the rain isn't going to dissolve the paint on our cars and rivers no longer catch on fire. Yes, he has to do drills to take cover in case of a shooter, but overall - things have absolutely improved.

And, they can improve more. Americans have accomplished amazing things. We got rid of smog in LA through regulations and created industries to help clean the air. We passed environmental regulations and cleaned up rivers and streams so that they no longer catch on fire. When I told my son about this - he was shocked - how can a river catch on fire? They were so polluted - they did.

Yes, we have a lot of work still to do. But we don't need to be pessimistic. We have already fixed so much. And we have learned from our past mistakes. We just have to summon the will to do these things and keep working to make things better. For everyone.

And I don't just say this for America. My friends in India are dealing with smog, and water pollution and water accessibility. And there are solutions for these things, if we decide to tackle them, they are fixable.

We may not be able to fix climate change, but we absolutely can move to cleaner energy sources, and pollute less and clean more. We have done it before and we can and should continue to do it.

As bad as things may seem, the reality is we aren't doing too bad. We have made a lot of progress and we should not allow our current circumstances blind us to this reality.

If we put our minds to it - we can achieve amazing things.

Everything will be alright

Why clearing the mind of clutter is so essential to progress.

There is a common thread that runs through the writings of activists across the globe. And that is that before they could really take on the root cause of the problems they were facing, they first had to free their own minds and decide for themselves what was right and what was wrong outside of what the social, religious or cultural norms were.

It is surprisingly hard to do. Most people are able to challenge only a portion of their preconceived notions and so their focus of change is narrow. Those who succeed often become great agents of change because they see how all the various forms of discrimination are interrelated. Discrimination comes from the same place even if the target is different.

Humanism and Freethought help clear the clutter out of our minds. But not everyone is willing to clear out everything. They are rightly concerned about being left adrift. After all, once you clear away the clutter, you usually go back and put some of the old stuff back in because, as it turns out, it was useful.

Many people approach self-reflection fearfully. A Humanist makes self-reflection a habit of the mind. We are continually challenging our assumptions. Our goal is to continue to improve ourselves and the world we live in. The benefits of clearing out the clutter of our minds are so great; we can’t imagine living life any other way. 

How do we nurture Freethought and clearing the mind, even if it is on a small scale? How can we reassure people who need to take this journey that it will be ok and that they will emerge on the other side of this stronger and more centered as a human being?