[Skybird]

But is optimism really equal to total conviction of success and something being possible, and is pessimism really equal to total conviction of failure and impossibility?

I do not think so. To me both terms describe a spectrum's two poles, and a slider on that scale that allows to read "realism value".

Set too much up towards optimism, and you do not take into account risks, ideas opposing your hopes, you prepare too lightly, you expect too much, etc. You become unrealistic.

Set too much down towards pessimism, and you hesitate more than you should, you do not even try, you get intimidated not only by what could go wrong but also by not seeing what could go right. Again, you become unrealistic.

However, it is our desires - speaking from perspective of Buddhist philosphy here - that make us suffer. What we desire but do not get, get separated from, get but lose, makes us suffer. No desire, no suffering. Very short formula to summarise it, but in principle that's it.

You have the same in Dante'S Divine Comedy. I have read that the words at the gate to heaven for long time have been quoted wrong, because Dante mixed up his notes. One thought, the words were at the entrance to hell, and they were "Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate" - "Let go all hopes those of you who enter here!" (in the meaning of hopelessness and doom, I translate - not very elegant - from the German). It has been shown by now that in fact the scripture reads different by Dante's original intention, and that it is not the gate to hell, but to heaven: "Lasciate ogni speranza, e poi entrate" - "(first) let go all your hopes - and then enter."

And another poet, I forgot for this moment who it was, a famous one it is, put it even better: "Selig ist, wer ohne Wünsche ist, denn er soll königlich überrascht werden.": Blessed is who is without desires, for he will get surprised regally.

I also would set up another context for it all, that is our basic desire to win peace of mind in our life by winning the conviction that our life has meaning and that we are safe in our role in the cosmic show because we have a certain, and sufficient, ammount of control over our fate and what the world and the future will throw at us. I think there is a link to this concpetion of reality bowing in our favour, and optimism, whereas I think there is a link between pessimism and a less antropocentric perceotion of our role in the cosmic show. One could now think about in how far this will effect our waxy of approaching "reality/life/world", and in how far it enables us to perceive our opportunity to learn about the real nature of things, or instead being fascinated and distracted by our idea of how they should be like (to feed our idea that cosmos has reserved a meaning for our own existence inside it). The veil of maya will not be cut by optimism, and not by pessimism, but realism. By no longer seeing things the way we want them, but seeing them as what they really are. To me, this is the essence of meditation, and this is what I have taught the students I had for years: learn to differ between the way we want things to be, and the way things really are.

So, it seems to me there is much more stuff and implications in this little article than what just skims at the obvious surface of the author's arguments.