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Landor

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The Corner: Rainn Wilson's English Teacher

A SoulPancake Exclusive by Raissa Landor

Isn’t it daring of Rainn to invite his old English Teacher to participate in the Soul Pancake Forum? I might talk about grammar, or post old papers, or commit any of the grievous blunders that you all recall, as vividly as if it were yesterday, being perpetrated by your English Teacher (We could have a separate corner devoted to The Horrors of Teacher X and Y).

But my memories of Rainn are of light and air—he was an exuberant free spirit and a radiant presence in the 3 semesters that I taught him. Smart, of course. Witty, no doubt. But, in fact, Rainn’s literary precursor might well be found in A.A. Milne’s Tigger: “a Friendly Tigger, a Grand Tigger, a Large and Helpful Tigger, a Tigger who bounced, if he bounced at all, in just the beautiful way a Tigger ought to bounce.”

Tigger’s polar opposite was, of course, Eeyore, who was "always gloomy." His comment, when waking up to a lovely day, is completely characteristic: "I shouldn’t be surprised if it hailed a good deal tomorrow… Blizzards and what not. Being fine today doesn’t mean anything.”

Randy Pausch, in "The Last Lecture," says that we all have a decision to make in our lives: “Each of us must decide: am I a fun-loving Tigger or am I a sad-sack Eeyore? Pick a camp.”

Another way of putting this same question is: are you an optimist or a pessimist? What is the reason why you are the one or the other? Genetics? Environment? The Fortunes of Life? In other words, is your temperament a reflection of your character (that is, a conscious decision to be optimistic or pessimistic) OR is it shaped by conditions beyond your control? Do you face the terrors of life with courage, grace and a belief in a better tomorrow, or are you overwhelmed by the evils of the world, feel imbued with pessimism, and face each day with dread for the horrors sure to come?

Are you, in short, a Yea Sayer, or a Nay Sayer?

Team SP

Landor

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I am an extreme of both because of my bipolar nature. However, my deepest depressions have yielded my best soul-searching endeavors in figuring out what it means to live. So, I say both Yea and Nay! They are both conducive to genuine human experience. I am more thoughtful and raw when I am down, yet I am more productive and upbeat when I am up. Both work in their own way.

I've always thought of myself as an optimist. Part of me believes that I prefer to be that way. I can't imagine being happy and being a pessimist. I'm not sure if that's possible, but then I've never been a pessimist to know if it were. I like to look on the sunny side of things. It gives me hope that things can always get better and that there is always a purpose to each circumstance, be it good or bad.

Why am I a "glass half full" person? Because that's how my mother is and I've learned a lot from watching her. I think that we do learn a lot about how to see the world from those around us. As children, we are most likely to take that example from our primary caregivers. Our daily lives teach us how the world is; which can lead us to different views of the world even. This could so easily lead into a debate about whether the world is a good or bad place, but I'm going there. Sure there's some genetic code in there that influences how we think about things. That in play with the examples we have creates our pessimism or optimism.

I just like to look at the beauty of the rainbow and being thankful for the storm that preceded it.

Right now I'm Eeyore, mainly because I can't find a girl to give me the time of day. I quickly change from optimist to pessimist depending on how girls treat me. My fellow dude has little say in my views; we've always got along in a platonic manner, and it works this way. But there's something about the non-platonic relationships that controls my view on life. Maybe it's the fact that everything becomes "complicated" when I haven't seen any change, or that the closest thing I've ever had to a full blown relationship is a fling at summer camp with a girl who had a boyfriend back home and lived a good 9 hours away from me. Not the sorry state of the society we live in, but the tiny little interactions between me and the opposite sex seem to be what brings me up or down. Which is odd, since the world we live in keeps swinging from utopia to dystopia.

I believe we have a choice to be either Tigger or Eeyore no matter what Life has thrown at us. This is my middle-aged woman, stage four cancer viewpoint and it took many, many years to get here.

P.S. It is so lovely Rainn's English teacher is on SoulPancake!

Being an optimist or a Tigger doesn't necessarily mean being ignorant or immune to the problems of life. I'm inspired by the people I know who have faced incredible challenges and tragedies but still manage to be a light to those around them.

I've read "The Tao of Pooh" and "The Te of Piglet". I am definitely a Piglet.

Golly, gee whiz. It sure is nice to see real literacy on the interweb. :o) Are you going to engage in conversations with us?

I'll take Tigger. Even when life was at it's lowest, darkest moments, I always expected things would get better. They always do.

By the way, if you own stocks, folks, don't sell them now.

T, I, Double Ga, ER. i am no doubt a tigger. i'm not blind to the bad/wrong/horrible things of this world i just choose to see the good that comes out of it instead of dwelling on the problems. life is a much more enjoyable experience when your not always saying i could be doing something better. and why look to the future with dread when you have the ability of today to make it a better tomorrow?

i am an optimist probably because it is so dull to me to be otherwise. real sadness does pervade me and teach me many things, but the beauty in being an optimist is that i get to relish the new perspectives in a joyful way, and then spread it around, if only to my dog and garden. i think i learned this from a deep survival instinct and honed and trusted my instincts as i grew. i came to understand my choice in seeing the up side as a means to choose life. why not?, if i'm not feeling it, living it, lovin' it, then it's all over, i lost. i don't want to loose the opportunity to love this gift of life even when it is really S****y sometimes

YAY

I'm a nay sayer in most ways. I try to influence others to be yea sayers and to approach things with a calm and level head, not to worry unnecessarily, but I rarely follow my own advice. It is absolutely all in my head - I over-think things to the point of misery. I think about everything that's happened to me, everything I've done (and haven't done) and dissect it to death, another thing I regularly advise others not to do.

For me, environment. I see the worst of my mother and grandmother coming out in me all the time. I can be cynical, which I don't mind because I think it's healthy for me to question things and doubt things sometimes, but I don't like it when I lean toward Negative Town. My mom and grandma have major self-loathing issues. It's what I was surrounded in growing up--everything was bad, no one could do anything right. I want to be a Tigger but I find it doesn't come naturally to me--it's something I'll have to work on for the rest of my life. There's a lot of damage to un-do, or at least channel into something more positive for my future.

Pessimist. I think it's because I'm a realist and I don't like indulging in positive preconceived notions of what might be.

Being bi-polar and suffering from depression it all depends on the day. Sometimes I am upbeat and optimistic and other times I am doom and gloom.

Sometimes they are people who are optimistic no matter the circumstances, while there are people who take the downside every time. It is all about being realistic and controlling the things that you can control, while letting go of the things that you cannot.

I think most people instinctively want to say that they're the full-fledged, glass half full, eternal optimists even when that's not entirely true. Optimism wins semantically, even; pessimist sounds like "piss" and, let's be honest, most people do not want to be the "pissy" one. Having said that, I think people need to stop and think about these labels for a second, particularly when using the Tigger and Eeyore analogy. One is constantly bouncing off the walls, making best friends with everyone he comes in contact with, speaking in gibberish most of the time and engaging in silliness all the time. The other is slow moving, droopy eyed, with a monotone and foreboding voice that will give you any excuse to realize that, due to the fact that this day is going to inevitably suck, you should just go back to bed. Am I the only one that realizes that Tigger is the drunk guy and Eeyore is his hungover counterpart?

When you look at it that way, you don't really want to be either one? Not all the time anyway. Sure, you don't mind making out with that guy you just met in a corner of some bar while your friends are snapping pictures and laughing hysterically at you. You do mind, however, when you wake up the next day feeling like death and you browse through those pictures realizing that "awesome guy" is some homeless guy you kept buying drinks for because he said you were "sooooo pretty!" You love the exuberance you feel when you're jumping naked on the trampoline with those hilarious new best friends you just met but it somehow loses its appeal when you stumble upon pictures of your drunk self on some sleazy website the next day while you're trying desperately to Google "too drunk, fix hangover." Tigger thinks it would probably be a good idea to tie that sled to the back of someone's pickup and go snow surfing, but Eeyore, in an amazing feat of time travel, tells you telepathically from tomorrow that waking up in the hospital with numerous broken bones won't be your idea of a good time. And miraculously, sometimes Eeyore wins!

We need the spirit of both of these characters to help us find a good balance. Realistically, if I spent all of my time reading and watching the news and hearing the terrible things that go on in this world on a daily basis, I'd be devastated. The Eeyore in me stays informed about these things but the Tigger in me throws out a quick prayer and hopes for the best. It's a delicate balance these two have in my heart, and instead of choosing one camp or the other, I think I'll stay right in the middle.

One thing that always struck me as I was "growing up" was the strong joyousness and spontaneous smiling faces that were to be found in the slums of Jakarta, Indonesia, or in tiny mud villages in the middle of the Sahel.

What struck me is the contrast between that, and it was irrespective of age, with what I found back in Europe, the UK, France in particular (which is where I lived).

It really troubled me as it troubled a lot of expatriates I met that people with so little material wealth seemed to be so rich in joy. Conversely, people with all the basic needs, running water, electricity, isolated housing, easy access to technology, educaiton, welfare and healthcare seemed to be in a constant state of stress and often depression.

From this information and experience alone, a first perspective would be that optimism, and happiness, where it changed from one environment to another, would therefore be related to the environment, i.e. not a conscious decision that we make in our lives.

However, I've also fuond that obvious truths never tend to be so true and simple.

Since you are an english teacher, I'm remembering be in class (ages ago) and writing dissertations.

What I was tought was to start large in the introduction (that would be experience in Asia, Africa, and Europe), then, still in the introduction, to define the problem and what it means.

So, I'm happy to do that :)

To me, the first thing you need to define when explaining the problem : "Am I a fun loving Tigger, or am I a sad sack Eeyore? Pick a camp." is what "I" am.

Though that may seem obvious, the reason it's important to define is that no, it's actually not obvious at all. Not only that, but once you've gone and defined what you are, it's also dead difficult to explain and define what influences what you are, in effect, what makes you what you are as time passes.

A simple example would be a debate that has been around for a long time and which I don't think has yet to reach a definite conclusion : innate, acquired traits. What parts of you are you "born" with, and what parts of you do you acquire through your life experience or personal development?

I heard not long ago that a baby animal that was adopted by a mother ended up (I don't know how) modifying it's genes in a similar way to its new mother.

I think the experiment was found on twin animals, (who by definition have the same genes) where one was brought up by it's own mother and the other by an adopted one.

To push the question further, irrespective of what you are born with, and what parts of you are defined by how you grew up, what parts of you and your actions stem from conscious thought and what can be explained otherwise? For example, in sales, we learn about "Yung's cross" and his theory that 90% of our actions are largely influenced by our sub-conscious "laiet motive".

And all of this brings me to one of the more fundamental questions, determinism and freedom/independence. Which parts of your life are you actually in control? Which decisions actually are conscious, fully independent, free will decisions?

But to finish off, my last question would be : can you choose what you are?

Did Eeyore ever decide to be a sad sack? Did Tigger achieve his manic joyousness through intense pscyotherapy and personal work?

But enough, this isn't a dissertation, and all you're asking is what I am.
I would say it depends again, but if an answer you need, it's Tigger.

The reason why is because I have a very strong and unexplainable faith in something which even I have yet to define. I'm confident that my attitude is honest, sincere and therefore blamelesss. Above all, not only am I content and have I almost always been content with my present situation, I have hope for the future, for me and others.

Maybe those are some of the things that make up the basic structure on which optimism resides. It's not something I chose consciously, but an attitude.

Where does attitude come from?

When I had the great pleasure of being in Ms. Landor's great books class in 2002 (hi, Ms. Landor!), we read Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. When it comes to the question - being a yeasayer or naysayer, an optimist or pessimist, I always return to a quote by Friedrich Nietzsche, which Frankl uses as a central premise of his book and philosophy: “He who has a why to live, can bear with almost any how.” Frankl also says in his book, that "between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." This, to me, seems like a clear endorsement of conscious, purposeful optimism. So whether by nature I'm an Eeyore or a Tigger, I try to choose to be a Tigger - an optimist regardless of genetics, environment, or the fortunes of life.

I was on my way to school in my VW bug when it started to drizzle. A motorscooter with two people on it passed me as I went over a train track and a big scoop of ice cream hit my windshield. Thinking that it was deliberate I chased them a ways but on reflection it must have been the RR track that did it and I slowed down but the tires skidded on the slick road and I slid through a stoplight (just as it changed). I turned around and went home and started the day again after a cuo of coffee and a cookie. Ever since then I have been a firm believer in signs and omens. If my algebra teacher smiles I know a pop quiz is coming I am optomistic but if the omens and signs are not right I begin to feel like the cat with it's fur standing straight out or I feel a neuron storm beginning in my temple.

First, this has always been one of the questions I contemplate; however, need an individual truly compartmentalize him/her self as A.) optimist or B.) pessimist? Doesn't this loaded question come to fruition in the fact that the self-evaluation of perceiving this differentiation is inherently pessimistic, to a degree? Should one who is truly optimistic/pessimistic about reality, existence or what have you (which I, ironically, maybe even pessimistically, don't believe in) ask themselves this question? My belief-structure leans toward pragmatism. Perceiving every thing, person, scenario, etc. for precisely what it is in the most rational, unbiased sense applicable and follow through with the most plausible disposition. This is a complex task to be sure, and one that is likely not to occur with exact execution often, but the most responsible attitude in my opinion.

*oops Now if I had the choice to be one or the other I would always choose to be a tigger - that is a yea sayer. But choice does imply a bit of consciousness as described above - and I say there are times when we are less conscious, and less able to choose our temperament. This could be when extreme difficulty, disease, grief, etc...come our way. So given the freedom and ability to choose, I would always choose to be a tigger. If choice itself is compromised then I would probably have to get used to looking at a donkey in the mirror everyday. But, I would still try and be the best damm (sp) donkey I could be - maybe a "Donkey" from Shrek instead of an Eeyore. But he's like a Tigger in disguise anways. (Rough draft)

SoulPancake

Landor

The Corner: Rainn Wilson's English Teacher

Are you, in short, a Yea Sayer, or a Nay Sayer?

Pac

dawnb87

RedStriped

ameliak

I believe we have a choice to be either Tigger or Eeyore no matter what Life has thrown at us. This is my middle-aged woman, stage four cancer viewpoint and it took many, many years to get here.

P.S. It is so lovely Rainn's English teacher is on SoulPancake!

Stengel99

Being an optimist or a Tigger doesn't necessarily mean being ignorant or immune to the problems of life. I'm inspired by the people I know who have faced incredible challenges and tragedies but still manage to be a light to those around them.

Unorthodocs

I've read "The Tao of Pooh" and "The Te of Piglet". I am definitely a Piglet.

joecounsel

kdoran

shoaleh

JennaMcM

YAY

midnight_memory

cmhough

ourrevelry

Pessimist. I think it's because I'm a realist and I don't like indulging in positive preconceived notions of what might be.

yankeehtr18

lvaneenoo

Inzababa

ElissaF

Hali

MoseNose

wrland

The Corner: Rainn Wilson's English Teacher

Are you, in short, a Yea Sayer, or a Nay Sayer?

I believe we have a choice to be either Tigger or Eeyore no matter what Life has thrown at us. This is my middle-aged woman, stage four cancer viewpoint and it took many, many years to get here.P.S. It is so lovely Rainn's English teacher is on SoulPancake!

Being an optimist or a Tigger doesn't necessarily mean being ignorant or immune to the problems of life. I'm inspired by the people I know who have faced incredible challenges and tragedies but still manage to be a light to those around them.

I've read "The Tao of Pooh" and "The Te of Piglet". I am definitely a Piglet.

YAY

Pessimist. I think it's because I'm a realist and I don't like indulging in positive preconceived notions of what might be.

What's Next?

I believe we have a choice to be either Tigger or Eeyore no matter what Life has thrown at us. This is my middle-aged woman, stage four cancer viewpoint and it took many, many years to get here.

P.S. It is so lovely Rainn's English teacher is on SoulPancake!