MANHATTAN IN LOCKDOWN — One March afternoon in 2020, through neighborhoods usually teeming with life, David Byrne rode his bicycle. The streets were eerie, empty, but spring was glorious. “The sun was shining, daffodils were emerging along the riverside bike path, dogwood trees were in bloom and at one point I thought to myself, ‘Yeah, life goes on.’”

Byrne rode home and wrote about the experience, turning pandemic gloom into a manifesto of hope. “The World is Changing — So Can We” soon appeared in the Wall Street Journal. In his op-ed, Byrne praised Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan for their COVID responses. “If those places can do it, why can’t the rest of us? And what kind of change in our thinking would it take?”

Readers of America’s premiere business journal were surprised. The founder of “Talking Heads” here among the stock quotes? Calling for government measures and collective action? But when Byrne posted the op-ed on his website, it was just another “reason to be cheerful.”

Reasonstobecheerful.world is sort of like The Attic writ global, facing the future. With a staff of eight, a world famous founder, and articles that promote a kinder, cooler planet, Byrne’s audaciously hopeful online magazine spreads the gospel of local action, innovation, and progress. If hope in our times seems rebellious, even revolutionary, consider it the newest wave from David Byrne.

Ever since his shy childhood when he suffered from Asperger’s syndrome, David Byrne has seen things differently. Early fascination with music, and his father’s reel-to-reel tape recorder rigged for overdubbing, led him to the Rhode Island School of Design. There he met other eccentrics and, after dropping out, they formed a band.

In 1975, “Talking Heads” opened for the Ramones at the East Village club CBGB. Within a year, the band’s edgy vocals and mysterious lyrics jumpstarted new wave rock. You probably know the rest — hits, a concert movie showing a herky-jerky Byrne in a baggy suit singing “same as it ever was,” more music, more other-worldly brilliance. But optimism? From the composer of “Psycho Killer” and “Burning Down the House”?

When the band broke up in 1991, Byrne’s peculiar brilliance would not let him rest. Over the next two decades, along with solo albums, David Byrne: wrote a book on the architecture of music, roamed and biked the world soaking up its rhythms and harmonies, composed soundtracks, directed documentaries and feature films, founded his own music label, turned a NYC building into a live musical instrument, had art shows at MassMoCA and elsewhere, was elected to the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, did a disco opera about Imelda Marcos, and worked with everyone from Selena to Richard Thompson to Twyla Tharp.

Plenty of reasons to be cheerful.

Come 2016, however, Byrne was as worried as everyone else. “I wake up in the morning, look at the paper, and go, ‘Oh no!’ Often I’m depressed for half the day.” Sound familiar?

But Byrne did not settle for despair. “As a kind of remedy and possibly a kind of therapy,” he began collecting news from around the world, news of programs, people, and policies that were actually working. The following year, he presented “Reasons to be Cheerful,” complete with slides and videos, to New York audiences. In 2018, he took the project online.

So what are these reasons?

This just in. . . Groundbreaking worker protections in South Africa. . . A program in Newark bringing cops and community together to talk about gun violence. . . . Kroger, America’s largest food chain, beginning a bulk recycling program. . . . An LGBTQ church in Uganda. . . L.A. suburbs using reflective paint on sidewalks to cool neighborhoods. . .

SAMPLE 192 WAYS THE WORLD GOT BETTER IN 2021 — IN ATTIC LISTS

Dozens of stories now fill Byrne’s website in categories with titles that defy despair. We are Not Divided. Juster Justice. Art is Everywhere. Education Against the Odds. Good Energy is Good Business. And the COVID series — Now Anything is Possible.

But possible only if you get out of your funk, get busy, get involved. Each evening during his joyous and dance-filled Broadway show, “American Utopia,” Byrne paused between songs to lobby for voting. House lights illumined 20 percent of the balcony as Byrne noted that 20 percent is the typical turnout in local elections. “The ones up top are waving and laughing because, well, they just decided the future and the future of your children.”

Vote. Think. Believe. And believe not because of but IN SPITE OF. . . Following his COVID bike ride, Byrne believed the crisis could build community. “How much do we surrender our rights and freedoms as individuals in order to better the health, safety, economic security and well being of everyone, including ourselves?” he asked. “Are we a bucket of crabs or a community?”

Hmmm….

If you find yourself humming “same as it ever was,” stop it. Just stop. Then visit reasonstobecheerful.world and help fight our dreary and drizzly Zeitgeist.

“This is a crazy time,” Byrne admits, “and you might be thinking that focusing on good stuff is just a distraction. But I disagree. I think it’s crucial to keep us from giving up. It might even be a more accurate picture of how things are than what we’re being shown.”

DAVID BYRNE, AMERICAN OPTIMIST