I'm going to tell you a secret:
The (proverbial) glass can only be "half full" if it's in the state of being filled.
Perception is not an adequate substitute for accurate context; true comprehension requires both.
The idiom to which I refer is not actually the accessibly-whimsical endorsement of ambivalence implied by its vernacular usage. It is not a vague assertion of the yin/yang merits of optimism and cynicism in balance; it is not a playful-but-poignant juxtaposition of common grounds between the fundamentally-irrational opposite poles of positivity and negativity.
The classic "glass half full/empty" idiom is instead a stark reminder of the dangers of perceptive emaciation, a warning that ambivalence and rhetorical intellect will inevitably fail us in our precise and measurable reality. Its message is that knowledge is never safe from the superficial machinations of our instinctual minds. It is a clever plea to "know, first and absolutely," the truth of a thing – rather than to decide it is what it merely appears to be at any given moment.
— a plea too clever for the modern human, evidently. What beautiful irony!
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