I agree with the first interpretation if you replace produces with presupposes or is the sort of thing you believe if you have the feeling of.
I also didn’t mean that [positive outlook] involves people at all: I think it’s more of a feeling about existence in general. It’s true like you say that there is so much variety from one person to another and over time, and that [life in general] as a concept doesn’t make much sense when you really think about it, but that doesn’t stop us from having a feeling about it. We know that it’s silly to talk about whether chocolate ice cream tastes good in general, and yet if you have always loved chocolate ice cream, there is a strong feeling that the goodness is an attribute of the ice cream itself rather than a description of your preferences, which is what you believe when you stop to think about it. The feeling for chocolate ice cream is to the feeling of [positive outlook] as the thought of “I love chocolate ice cream” is to the thought of “my life can be better” (can be better as in “has no upper bound” rather than “has nowhere to go but up”).
I feel like I’m expressing myself so poorly that I should just stop before I confuse even more.
I agree with the first interpretation if you replace produces with presupposes or is the sort of thing you believe if you have the feeling of.
I also didn’t mean that [positive outlook] involves people at all: I think it’s more of a feeling about existence in general. It’s true like you say that there is so much variety from one person to another and over time, and that [life in general] as a concept doesn’t make much sense when you really think about it, but that doesn’t stop us from having a feeling about it. We know that it’s silly to talk about whether chocolate ice cream tastes good in general, and yet if you have always loved chocolate ice cream, there is a strong feeling that the goodness is an attribute of the ice cream itself rather than a description of your preferences, which is what you believe when you stop to think about it. The feeling for chocolate ice cream is to the feeling of [positive outlook] as the thought of “I love chocolate ice cream” is to the thought of “my life can be better” (can be better as in “has no upper bound” rather than “has nowhere to go but up”).
I feel like I’m expressing myself so poorly that I should just stop before I confuse even more.