@wildcat: like all words, the leaning of 'reality' varies according to its usage - the context of its utterance, and the agreement among its users (or disagreement). For instance, if you were walking through a forest and tripped over a dead warthog just as a 1953 prototype of a 1962 Frigidaire fell on you from the sky that would feel pretty real to some people. The semiologist Roland Barthes was knocked down by a real laundry truck and killed not long after discussing the arbitrariness of reality. Drunks who are poisoning themselves with alcohol deny this reality and assert the reality of happiness etc. It is a truth universally denied that we are all in a state of denial of something or oth...

@wildcat: like all words, the leaning of 'reality' varies according to its usage - the context of its utterance, and the agreement among its users (or disagreement). For instance, if you were walking through a forest and tripped over a dead warthog just as a 1953 prototype of a 1962 Frigidaire fell on you from the sky that would feel pretty real to some people. The semiologist Roland Barthes was knocked down by a real laundry truck and killed not long after discussing the arbitrariness of reality. Drunks who are poisoning themselves with alcohol deny this reality and assert the reality of happiness etc. It is a truth universally denied that we are all in a state of denial of something or other. Fromm talked of FALSE optimism defined by its embodiment in the concept of denial of 'reality'. There is no permanent, underlying 'reality' of anything.
Within context, extreme optimism can be characterised by mania, extreme pessimism by depresssion. Baudrillard famously said the first Iraq war was not real, most people disagree - especially those who suffered in it. If you have a headache or a hairy wart growing on your nose that is reality. If your hairy wart begins talking to you people around you may question your 'reality orientation', but not if they too believed their own hairy wart was their best friend.

A Cynic is an optimist with experience.
A pessimist is never disappointed.
One of the dangers of optimism can be the idea that problems have the ability to solve themselves.
I hadn't heard about Baudrillard, but I noticed his view of history is that it is becoming a victim of the disposable society.
he seems to have had ideas that are both interesting and relevant. No doubt someone I should learn more about.
Most Gamblers who lose all of their money are eternal optimists. Optimism and pessimism can be best applied to a situation, but it pays to accompany both with a sense of Humor. The weight of both can be lightened. The taste of the humor can depend on the extreme it accompanies. The bigg...

A Cynic is an optimist with experience.
A pessimist is never disappointed.
One of the dangers of optimism can be the idea that problems have the ability to solve themselves.
I hadn't heard about Baudrillard, but I noticed his view of history is that it is becoming a victim of the disposable society.
he seems to have had ideas that are both interesting and relevant. No doubt someone I should learn more about.
Most Gamblers who lose all of their money are eternal optimists. Optimism and pessimism can be best applied to a situation, but it pays to accompany both with a sense of Humor. The weight of both can be lightened. The taste of the humor can depend on the extreme it accompanies. The biggest danger with pessimism can be self fulfilling prophecy, while failure to an optimist, can have characteristics that an optimist can see as valuable. As Edison said A failure can be a valuable way of proving how something can't be done.
The biggest danger with optimism is that failures can be taken personaly. The reality we immediately see is for both optimists and pessimists who are not prepared to see beyond it, to see the the reality of others with the same distinction, or see the reality of what may be with an honest determination to improve. We must always keep our eyes sharp for both the opportunities, and pitfalls. remembering that everything has a time and a place. While remembering euphemistic descriptions of attitude, can be subtle ways of giving blindness a pretty name, and suggest foresight we clearly wont forget. The biggest value of both is the way we can compare what we expected to happen, with an actual outcome. That is where Honesty to one's self is at least as valuable as a sense of humor
" I get knocked down, but I get up again "