Optimistic Misfits

“But all the optimism of the age had been false and disheartening for this reason, that it had always been trying to prove that we fit in to the world. The Christian optimism is based on the fact that we do not fit into the world.

The optimists’ pleasure was prosaic, for it dwelt on the naturalness of everything; the Christian’s pleasure was poetic, for it dwelt on the unnaturalness of everything in the light of the supernatural. The modern philosopher had told me again and again that I was in the right place, and I had still felt depressed even in acquiescence. But when I heard that I was in the wrong place, my soul sang for joy, like a bird in the spring.”

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 116.