Despite Despair

In "Notes to the Reader" at the end of his short story anthology, Strange Highways, Dean Koontz wrote:

"Every writer is an optimist at heart. Even if his work trades in cynicism and despair, even if he is genuinely weary of the world, and cold in his soul, a writer is always sure that the end of the rainbow will inevitably be found on the publication date of his next novel. "Life is crap," he will say, and seem to mean it, and a moment later will be caught dreamily ruminating on his pending elevation by critics to the pantheon of American writers and to the top of the New York Times bestseller list."

Well. There's an answer to despair. Dean Koontz, a well respected, professional writer knows about despair and the eternal optimism that brings us storytellers back to the page.

I used to be curious about miners. Many of them in the 1800s were independent, working their own claims, starving to death under horrible conditions just for the tiny potential lure of the Greatest Gold Strike Ever. Why didn't they get regular jobs, I wondered. Why suffer like this?

Foolish me. They were optimists. Even more so than I. With every swing of their pick or swoosh of their pan, they were expecting to find gold. Lots of gold. At the end of long, hard, miserable days they could probably be seen, like Koontz, "dreamily ruminating" on their potential success, and their "elevation to the pantheon" of those of who struck it rich!

I guess I'm learning that despite despair, a lot of us keep going. Enough whining. Back to the mines. Back to the page.