The Glass
A lot of people like to define either themselves or others, or both, in terms of whether they are “glass half full” or “glass half empty” people, a well-known modern metaphor to express inclination towards either optimism or pessimism. There’s a famous Far Side cartoon which expresses this brilliantly: there are four frames, showing four different people each. Each person is confronted with the same glass partially filled with water. The caption of the cartoon is “The Four Basic Personality Types”. The first frame shows The Happy Person, the optimist, with their hands exultantly in the air, and exclaiming “It’s half full!”. The second frame shows The Misery Guts, the pessimistic person, who stands in front of the glass with their shoulders sloping downwards and their face drooping, declaring in a dull monotone “It’s half empty”. The third person is The Scatter Brain, the confused and clueless person: the picture shows a confused looking person wringing their hands in existentia...