It’s not even optimistic to say we have to try, it’s just necessary. To give up, to stop trying, is to accept that things can’t change. As Audre Lorde put it: “despair is a tool of our enemies.” Despair is a gift to those that want you to believe that what we’ve got is all we’ll get and there’s no way to make things better.
From *A pep talk in the face of despair (or: trying redux)* by Dan Sinker