One of the nice things about being a basically hypercritical and negative individual like myself is that when your opinions turn out to be wrong, you’re almost invariably pleasantly surprised. “Well, that’s it: we’re all gonna’ die,” I say, and it’s kind of hard not to be happy when you’re proved to be wrong. I feel sad for all the stupid hippies of the world, who constantly aspire to great and glorious things, only to have ugly stupid reality and traffic jams and famines and coffee stains bring them down. On the other hand, if you’ve resigned yourself to an imminent economic and environmental collapse, and it *doesn’t* happen, then every day seems like a gift from God. It’s a “The glass is half empty/The glass is broken and empty and men are coming to kill you” kind of thing. I’m not saying it’s the best of all possible ways to live, I’m just saying that it works for me.