Introduction

One could declare this to be simply a book about pessimism but that term would be inaccurate and insufficient. A non-verbal shortcut into the subject could be had by listening to Tears for Fears’ Mad World or Dinah Washington’s This Bitter Earth , or perhaps just by reading today’s newspaper. Depressive realism is the term used throughout this book but it will often be abbreviated to DR for ease of reading, referring to the negative worldview and also to anyone subscribing to this worldview ( a DR, or DRs). DRs themselves may regard the ‘depressive’ part of the label as gratuitous, thinking their worldview to be simply realism just as Buddhism holds dukkha to be a fact of life.