It’s a question Jon Stewart likely gets often: How does he stay optimistic?
Thankfully, Stewart’s answer was caught on tape this time, occurring during a recent taping of The Daily Show, which Stewart typically begins with an audience Q&A. The show posted the video to its YouTube channel this weekend as part of its After the Cut series—which was just nominated for an Emmy last week (in the Outstanding Short Form Nonfiction or Reality Series category).
“I was just wondering,” the audience member asked, “how do you maintain a sense of hope and levity?”
“How old are you,” Stewart asked after feigning exhaustion by collapsing against his desk.
“I’m 19,” the fan replied to laughter.
“Nineteen years old and the world’s already beat the s**t out of you,” the 61-year-old Stewart joked. But then he got serious, offering a thoughtful reflection on what keeps him positive.
“I’m actually weirdly always optimistic. I think maybe that is the horizon of history,” he began. “I came up at a time in the ‘60s when we had all these great leaders, and we killed all of them. Every single one. And then we went to Vietnam and lost. And then Watergate.”
“S**t was just unraveling,” he continued. “So I do think it gives you a sense of, ‘Oh, it’s always a mess.’”
“What that makes you realize,” he concluded, “is that’s the game. We buckle down. You gotta lunchpail it, and you carry through… You’re 19. Someday when you’re 61,” he told the fan, “You will be that guy to be able to say, ‘You think it’s bad now?’”
But Stewart conceded to having the same difficulty embracing that feeling of hope when he was younger. “I do remember [at] 19, like that age, there is a certain existential anxiety that creeps in. Because the world… feels out of control,” he said. “You probably know more about it now than we did. One of the things that’s probably harder for kids now is the amount of information you absorb.”
The Daily Show host was also able to elucidate just what makes the current climate so frustrating. “Part of the issue is you just want someone to talk to you like you’re a human; like you’re an adult,” he said.
“That’s my biggest complaint with all of this. Nobody expects perfection. Everybody knows that the obstacles… are gonna be arduous. That’s life. Life is hard. But you just want someone to not bulls**t you when what you know you see and hear is what you see and hear.”
