Always look on the bright side of life.

Last night, it rained and thundered a lot at our house, and our windows leaked again.  I learned this because Fuzz was up at 10PM, and his fussing sounded different.  Usually I can run in and soothe him and he will fall right back asleep.  This time, I ran in, and he was all wet, and there was water spraying everywhere.  Whoops.  This was an annoying thing to have happen at 10PM, because I had to get him up, Mike had to get Tupperware containers to catch the water, we had to get a whole bunch of rags to mop up the mess, and I think that Fuzz is going to have a bit of a water stain on the paint underneath his window in his room.

In the big picture, this is not a huge deal.  I don't think that God or the universe is out to get me because of the annoying window leak or anything.  It's unfortunate but we have moved on (and will have to figure out how to repair these things).

Voltaire, in Candide, mocks people who are optimists, and the view that things are generally for the best.  He does this in a pretty entertaining way, by creating this character and having this ridiculous series of unfortunate events happen to him.  The idea is that by the end of the novel, he essentially has his optimism beaten out of him.  It's pretty clever and creative, especially when you consider that it was written in the 1750s, so it certainly has stood the test of time.

I don't really agree with the idea though that optimism is silly.  It is silly to rely on optimism only and not do something about one's situation.  I can be optimistic that it won't rain again and hence our window won't leak, but that would be silly.  I will instead be optimistic that we will find the right repair person and get the windows fixed and it won't be an issue any more.

So I will continue to look on the bright side of life, although that may seem silly to Voltaire.