Coming soon ;D
First draft for now: counterfactual-including optimism e.g. "I see there are birds flying in the sky today ^-^ but even if there were no birds, today would had still been AWESOME ;P" and counterfactual-excluding optimism e.g. "I see there are birds flying in the sky today ^-^" while implying that, if there were no birds flying in the sky, it wouldn't had been so amazing (the degree of negativity may vary, from a "still amazing but not as much" to "totally depressing scenario"). I think I may focus more on the counterfactual-including optimism here, but I'll probably explore both lol. Hmm... another distinction may be "necessary counterfactual-excluding optimism" vs "contingent counterfactual-excluding optimism". The former means that a person, no matter what happens, always tries to see the "good" in a situation, while however implying that if the scenario had been different, it wouldn't had been as good e.g. if someone doesn't have as much money as the have, they may say something like "I'm so grateful that I'm not filthy rich... life would start feeling meaningless, and there are so many negative sides of being rich". That person may or may not actually believe it. A person who engages in "necessary counterfactual-excluding optimism" would say something like that while poor, whereas if that same person was rich (or became rich afterwards), they would had been grateful for being rich and said that being poor is a bad thing. Contingent counterfactual excluding optimism means that by chance, it simply happened that a situation that a person likes manifested in their lives.
This page will explore counterfactual-including optimism.
Uhm... I've thought about it in the past and it seemed intuitive that if X is awesome and non-X is also awesome, then it's not really 'positivity' but simply 'neutrality'... it's literally indifference. Well, it is indifference, indeed, but it's actually not as simple as that. For instance, if X is 'truly awful' and non-X is also 'truly awful', then it's also indifferent... but is it the same indifference as the 'positive' indifference? I've thought about it and... no, it's not the same. One is optimistic and the other is pessimistic. The difference between the two is mood/attitudinal related, though by definition both of them are two types of indifference. However, it's even more complicated than that, because while it may be (in many cases) indifferent when it comes to the 'intensity' of the positivity, it's not indifferent when it comes to the 'quality' or characteristics of the positivity. For instance, if "birds flying in the sky" and "no birds flying in the sky" are both 'super awesome', maybe the intensity of the happiness is the same, but the quality, characteristics or focus of the happiness is different. So, if the birds flying in the sky is 'super awesome', that's the focus of the happiness. If there are no birds flying in the sky, the intensity of the happiness may be the same but the focus is different. I would say that the focus of the happiness is not the lack of birds flying in the sky (as that would imply that if there were birds flying in the sky it wouldn't be as great, or that it may had been an annoyance, even if mild, and that would be a counterfactual-excluding optimism... for some reason the focus of the happiness being the birds flying in the sky doesn't appear to imply that the lack of birds would had been a disappointment, at least, not necessarily), but rather, the focus of the happiness is simply the day itself, it's a super awesome day, birds or no birds. This page will try to explore various situations as seen from the lens of counterfactual-including optimism, as that is the type of optimism that I personally find the most interesting from a philosophical and psychological perspective. Of course there are physiological limits of how optimistic a person can be, or at least, I believe so, but here I'll try to explore how optimistic a person can be.
If X is 'truly awful' and non-X is also 'truly awful' then I'd say that's perhaps some kind of existential pessimism or something like that. Now, I think it's important to keep in mind that no matter how positive, a counterfactual-including optimism doesn't have the attitude of, say, agreeing strongly with a proposal (since even the opposite of that proposal would had been cheered in the same way), it's more like an "okay" attitude. However, it does change depending on the mood. Mildly positive counterfactual-including optimism has the vibe of, like... "okay, that's fine to me *shrugs*" whereas a very strongly positive version of this... philosophy(?)/mood/attitude/whatever is more like "yay okay sounds dope :D *very bright smile*" but of course, an opposite scenario would also had triggered the same response. This page will try to explore how various things are seen through this perspective of a very strongly positive counterfactual-including optimism.
There is a wide variety of positive feelings, it's not like just one feeling that only changes in terms of intensity. For instance there is a feeling of positive surprise, excitement, euphoria, "happy relaxation" (I'm not sure what it's called, I need to do some research lol but basically it's a calm yet very happy feeling), "teary-eyes happiness", "happiness that makes you want to dance like crazy" etc. I need to do research to know what these emotions are called but basically what I'm trying to say is that there is a wide variety of positive feelings and I think it's important to keep this in mind. So X and non-X can be both 'super awesome' but in different ways. Another thing to keep into consideration is the focus of the emotion. For instance, "birds flying in the sky" and "no birds flying in the sky" can both be the focus of the happiness e.g. birds flying in the sky evoking a sense of "this is a heavenly sight of nature" (or something like that) and no birds flying in the sky can evoke a sense of poetic loneliness that one may enjoy, and both emotions can co-exist counterfactually, that is, a person that enjoys the lack of birds flying in the sky for the sense of poetic loneliness could also enjoy the presence of birds flying in the sky for the "heavenly sight of nature". That person enjoys both scenarios, the emotion is different but very positive in both cases. Another possibility is that, for instance, if there are no birds flying in the sky, then that's not the focus of the positive emotion but rather, the focus is the fact that it's a 'super awesome day' (birds or no birds), generically.