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Bitterly optimistic

For a while there I considered disconnecting from Facebook, which I had taken to calling "bitchbook" because of the sheer number of people using one of the greatest technological advances of all time to complain about their daily lives - with problem

For a while there I considered disconnecting from Facebook, which I had taken to calling "bitchbook" because of the sheer number of people using one of the greatest technological advances of all time to complain about their daily lives - with problems that in a first world/third world/fifth world scale of global unpleasantness aren't all that bad.

"Why me?" people would ask, as if they're the only person that unplanned or unpleasant things happen to. "I'm so unlucky."

Actually, a baby born yesterday in Somalia is unlucky. Billions of people on this planet are worse off than you. Even on your baddest bad hair day, you won the freaking lottery.

My problem is that I'm generally poor at giving sympathy at times it's not really called for, urging people to look at the bright side rather than validating their hurt sense of whatever. People hate that - just as I hate this culture of aggrieved victimhood we've created/tolerated, and hate myself when I find myself slipping into the Vortex of Pity from time to time. Being a realist of no particular faith or creed, sometimes it really does seem like it's a short leap from telling it like it is to being a negative, cynical drag.

You could argue that's because reality is inherently negative, that the world is circling the toilet bowl, but that's simply not true. People have been saying that for millennia, and the data just doesn't support it. Things - at least the things we can quantify and measure - are actually getting better.

If you were to graph it, going back a few thousand years to when rape and murder passed for public entertainment and diarrhea was a death sentence, the progress of humanity would be one long upward curve with a few dips along the way. The advances we've made in medicine, in technology, in agriculture, in education, in political and social development, and in every field whatsoever, have been nothing short of astonishing. While military budgets are up for some reason, our world is far more peaceful than it's ever been - 66 years without a world war and counting! And while police and prison budgets are up (why Harper, why?) statistics show that crime is on the decrease as well.

People are less racist, men less misogynist and people in general more equal. Life expectancy and literacy are both climbing. Infant mortality is declining. Cultures have not only survived the melting pot of urbanization and modernization, they're flourishing (the good parts about them, anyway).

There's a book by Gregg Easterbrook called The Progress Paradox , which seeks to answer one important question - why do people feel worse when life is actually getting better?

Some suggest that modernization can alienate us while creating a spiritual chasm that many of us have tumbled into. Some say we've neglected the important things, like friends and family, in the interest of consumerism. Others suggest that we've made life too complex (or, alternatively, too easy) - and that we were truly happier when life was 24/7 about survival. I've also read a theory that we're miserable simply because we get most of our genes from Cro Magnons, war-happy jerks that were incapable of living in harmony with Neanderthals, nature or other Cro Magnons. How much evolution can we really expect to make in a scant 20,000 years?

Maybe, just maybe, it's in our nature to look on the dim side, and that fact has only been amplified by social networking and cubicle-style offices where you can tell co-workers about your woes without even getting out of your seat. Maybe it's become socially acceptable to whinge about everything that you were once expected to suck up and keep to yourself.

I bring this up now because we're heading into a municipal election. And while we have some real issues to consider - and there's no question that Whistler is not pulling them in like we used to - it's still important to remember who we are and where we live. We are the lucky ones, and need to remember that.

Mistakes have been made, and numerous things have happened that are beyond our control, but the last winter was really okay and this summer will probably rank in the top three for tourist numbers. We ought to be tanking - other resorts are - but we're still hanging in there like that kitty on the laundry line. This is no accident, and achieving the status quo took a lot of hard work during this period of global decline.

Nobody would ever suggest that Whistler is better off economically than we were a decade ago when a U.S. dollar bought $1.40 Canadian, but I think we should all be able to agree that it could be a lot worse. That makes for a better starting point in a debate about Whistler's future than claims that we're circling the toilet.

By all means, complain about pay parking (I do) or property taxes (again, me), but we should never lose perspective or assume that the bad outweighs the good. There's more to it than a few hot button issues.

And if your coffee arrives cold or the person who sold it to you gives you attitude, by all means tell somebody about it if it makes you feel better or validates your feelings. Just please don't post it on Facebook.