If you see the trash can as half full, does that make you an optimist or a pessimist? Since it’s half full of garbage, as opposed to daisies or puppies, it’s questionable. On the other hand, in the tweeted words of Jill Morris: “Some people look at the glass as half empty. I look at the glass as a weapon. You can never be too safe around pessimists.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Half Full of What?”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Herschel from Detroit.
Hi, Herschel.
Hi, Herschel. How are you doing?
Good. Thank God. How are you doing today?
Great. What can we help you with?
Good to hear. I’m a very new listener to A Way with Words and having just discovered it, traveling through Ohio. And the first time I heard the show, I thought to myself, there’s a problem that’s been bothering our family for many years. What was the deal?
We’re a family of seven children and the two parents, and everybody has given various different sundry chores to do. So it happened after one supper that one of my daughters came in from taking out the trash, and she said, the trash can is half full. And I just kind of quizzically looked at her and said, well, does that make you an optimist or a pessimist? And everybody sort of like stopped, and they kind of like got it, and everybody laughed. And we’ve been throwing this around.
It comes up occasionally over the last, we’re talking six, seven years, that we’re still throwing this around. We’ve been approaching it from philosophical terminology and sociological, and I figured I’d like to hear from linguistically how would we go approach the answer to this question. Is she an optimist or a pessimist? Because she said the garbage can is half full.
Right. It’s half full of trash.
Right.
So I guess…
It didn’t have puppies in it or daisies.
No.
Yeah, yeah, I was going to say. It’s half full of garbage.
Garbage, right.
Right. So I guess it depends. I don’t know. Did she point this out because she wanted to get out of taking the trash that she thought that she didn’t need to take it out until it was full?
It could very well be.
Oh, so that would be optimistic.
Yeah, that would be optimistic. And I guess, yeah, I guess it depends on what the trash means to you, right?
Mm—
So it is trash, and this is one of the things everybody’s been sort of like having their wing. I’m a little bit more philosophical about it and think I’d be called myself an optimist, but for the wrong reason, because if it’s a half-full trash can, that means I can put more trash into it. It’s really saying that I’m looking at the trash can as being half-empty, which would make me a pessimist, but I’m really optimistic about putting more trash into it.
Love it. And even further, you could say that you might be an optimist because you’re pointing out that you’re not as wasteful as you could be. You’ve only half filled the trash can.
That’s right. What’s the situation with the recycling?
That’s what was going to be my next point. The only one who really came up with any concrete answer at the time was my then eight-year-old who piped up like a meteor. She was introduced to recycling in third grade and just has turned the world over in recycling. The high school that she went to didn’t recycle, and she insisted the first day that they institute recycling. And so she said, I would be considering myself an optimist because if the trash can is half full, that must mean that the recycling bins are full.
That’s a very good thing.
Yeah.
You know what? Brilliant kid. Give her a raise on her allowance.
Yeah.
So she’s, what, 15 now?
She’s now 15, yes.
So linguistically, can we offer anything, Grant?
We can offer our best advice as Zen masters. I mean, really, we’re talking about a question of pure philosophy, right?
Philosophy.
Philosophy.
Philosophy.
Yes, sorry. It’s about the discussion more than it’s about the answer, right?
Probably. You consider all the facets of this question so that you can reach some kind of enlightenment and not actually ultimately solve it.
Well, if the optimist has always been defied looking at the glass of water half full and the optimist half empty, but here’s a whole different switch on it. I saw this recently. There’s a woman by the name of Jill Morris. She’s very funny. She wrote a book called Please Fire Me. And on Twitter she wrote, some people look at the glass as half empty. I look at the glass as a weapon. You can never be too safe around pessimists.
I like that.
I like that.
That’s good.
I want to hear what our listeners have to say. Do you think that this garbage can is half full or half empty? And if you think it’s half full, are you an optimist or a pessimist? 877-929-9673 or email words@waywordradio.org.
Terrific.
Thanks for calling and thanks for explaining that. It sounds like you’ve got a lovely family there.
Thank you so much.
All right.
Bye-bye.
Take it, bye.
Bring us your hefty questions. 877-929-9673.
I think of Trash as emptied or not emptied whereas I think of the glass as either full, not full, or partially full, And I think we think of the natural state of trash as needing to be emptied. Therefor, a half full trash can is as non-empty as any other state of the can where it is not empty.
If the can is half full, then the only thing I can be optimistic about is that at some point I need to empty it.
I think of it from the perspective of the self. My function is to fill the garbage can. My function is to empty the glass of water. Therefore, the glass is always half empty, and the garbage can is half full.