Lack vs. Absence - Unmet Expectations

During Monday's class, we touched briefly on the subject of expectations and their effects on world-views.  Primarily, we referred to positive expectations and the reaction of disappointment when those expectations remained unmet.  For example, if someone grew up believing that they were going to learn to fly when they turned eighteen, they would be gravely disappointed when they reached the aforementioned age and yet remained firmly earthbound.  However, if that person grew up in the knowledge that turning eighteen does not automatically enable one to fly, they would not be disappointed when they did not gain the ability of flight at that age.

This, I think, may have had a large effect on both Melville's and Schopenhauer's world-views.  They lived in a society which seems to have encouraged optimistic views of nature, humanity, and religion.  Upon reflection, they likely discovered that these views were largely unfounded, and were as a result highly disappointed, and able to focus only on the unexpected, negative aspects of these various areas.  If they had not held such high expectations in the first place, they might never have felt this way at all.

Lastly, this idea of reality failing to meet expectations continues to affect many people today.  Disillusionment regarding one's religion, a friend, a role model, or even oneself can cause people to become bitter or to feel badly about whatever it is which appears to have let them down.  The key to avoiding this, I think, is to ensure that one's expectations are at least relatively well-founded to begin with.  It is unreasonable to expect oneself to, for example, become a master in a martial arts style in a few weeks; thus, one should not hold this expectation, or else one will, almost without exception, be disappointed.