The Glass Itself

Is the glass half empty or half full?

Who cares?

I’ve always felt like the basic formulation of the “optimist vs pessimist” question - is this glass half empty or half full - was designed by a pragmatic, convergent thinker.

Who cares what’s in it when you have the glass itself?

Think of all the things you can do with a glass!

If it’s completely empty, you can hold it against a wall and eavesdrop on people.

You can have a wedding ceremony and have someone stomp on it.

You can use it to roll out dough and cut nice, symmetrical biscuits.

You can fill it with flowers.

You can draw a picture of it - or if you’re not great at drawing, you can use it to draw circles.

Then you can use the glass to hold the corner of the paper down.

Or let’s say the glass is half empty. It has something in it, say your favorite juice, but - it’s almost gone! *schnif*

Woe, woe, the way of the world, my glass is almost empty, isn’t that always the way

But the very existence of the glass refers to the availability of a million different kinds of beverages out there in the world.

Free, sanitary tap water!

The cleanest the world has ever known!

Inexpensive industrial beverages, available not only at every single grocery store, convenience store, and gas station, but in vending machines as well.

And you don’t even need a glass to drink them!

Then it only makes sense to think, this darn glass is still half full. All this liquid is getting in the way of all the other potential beverages that could be in here. Won’t someone please come along and empty this darn glass so I can refill it with something I like better?

Chug it and empty it yourself, drain it to the last drop, knowing there will always be more where that came from!

The truth is that an empty glass is a call for hospitality. How many parties, weddings, even funerals are there where someone walking up with an empty glass will quickly have it filled?

Even the most begrudging people would probably still allow you to fill this glass from their garden hose, and that’s not nothing.

A stranger holding a glass in hand is basically crying out for someone to come up with another glass and clink it, Ting!

This is something my little parrot loves to do. If you meet her, she’s going to want to know if you ting. Take turns tapping the glass and holding completely still, listening for the ringing sound until it fades away, then it’s the next bird’s turn to go ting.

See, a drinking glass is not just good for a philosophical construct. It is an interesting material object in its own right, and of interest not just to humans but to other species.

Why, just set it down on a table and find out what a housecat will do with it.

Thus is it clearly demonstrated that it doesn’t matter one whit whether the glass is half empty or half full. The very existence of the glass itself is a testament to the problem-solving and creative nature of humanity, our ability to continually generate new ideas and new ways of doing things, making them decorative in the process.

Anyone who sees less is just too impatient to apply a bit of imagination to the question.