Is the glass half full or half empty?

This, is. I suspect is a perplexity which many of us face on a daily basis. It seems to be an unsolvable dilemma, since the same set of facts can be either cause for despair or optimism (rather like the duck/rabbit). Are we (as a nation) taking the high road or the low road? Are things getting better or worse? Should we start packing for Perth, or should we prepare for the long haul and put our shoulders to the wheel? Is staying on an act of faith or an act of folly? I suspect that as South Africans we all – rather like Athol Fugard’s Hally – ‘oscillate between hope and despair’. How much of the optimism that attended the 1994 elections remains?