okay so here's the thing I've been thinking about — the human brain refuses to believe that genuinely good things will happen to it, even when presented with statistical evidence to the contrary. like, I can literally show someone the data that 80% of situations turn out fine and they'll still go 'yeah but I'm the exception.' and maybe that's not pessimism, maybe it's just our brains being really bad at accepting that we might actually deserve nice things.