Our Culture is so soaked with Cynicism it’s a wonder that anybody believes anything. Religious Leaders are continually falling into economic or sexual disgrace. Economic Leaders are continually swindling unsuspecting taxpayers out of billions. Political Leaders are continually making popular promises, breaking them, and finding excuses to go to war or compromise their values. To make it all worse, the Media seems to thrive on pointing out these contradictions, to where you can hardly look at a news site or channel without some new tale of exploitative self-interest.
It could be argued that it is only me who suffers a problem of excessive Cynicism, and I could certainly entertain the possibility of such a fact. After all, a lot of my youth was caught up in idolizing my parents, and when one of them died and the other lost faith, most of my expectations of people went out the window.
It took awhile to manifest itself, but after more exposure to human hypocrisy and the relentless cynical attitudes coming from our Popular Culture it would have been a miracle had I stayed at all optimistic. But I don’t think it’s just me. After all, most people younger than 50 bathe themselves in sarcasm. It
is popular to not take anything seriously, to crack a sharp joke at a person while he’s down, to have a certain amount of indifference and aloofness. Just look at the number of films with wise-cracking anti-heroes in them, or calm collected teenagers and twentysomethings. No, the culture of cynicism surrounds us all.
Most people, though, find exceptions to their Cynical nature, and this is what sustains them. I, on the other hand, view almost every circumstance with distrust. Friends will one day abandon me once they feel the need to establish families. Family was never particularly interested in me in the first place. As a result, I tend to “poison the well” in my interpersonal relationships, giving as little as possible and sacrificing nothing, until I am viewed as a lazy, selfish mooch existing for his own personal pleasure, and thus continue the cycle of Cynicism and my own exposure to it.
I was casting about the Internet this morning trying to find some e-books I’m interested in, since I never get a chance to go to the Library anymore. (I have a long list of books I eventually want to read, just as I do with movies I want to watch and video games I want to play.) I thought to myself, I have so much free time, I might as well do something that I both enjoy and that will improve my mind. Eventually I came upon a collection of philosophy books, and this got me to considering the idea that I don’t have any sort of “center” to my life like I did when I was religious.
I started to wonder what exactly my “problem” is. Why don’t I want to expend any effort? Why don’t I try to improve myself? And the answer: I don’t view it as worth it. The world is going to be destroyed. Any improvements I could make would be only marginal ones, and my self-worth probably wouldn’t change. I am “damaged goods” that aren’t worth repairing. And one central idea stuck out in my mind: I wouldn’t be this way if I had something that I valued. Thus: Cynicism is my problem.
Most of my friends accuse me of structuring my world-view to justify my actions (or my lack of action). You view the world and yourself as a lost cause simply because you have no desire to put forth the effort to improve anything. You refuse to envision more happy, self-determined circumstances for yourself because you don’t want to work to make those possibilities real. You blame your family and your culture and your environment for your problems because you don’t want to accept responsibility for what you have done to yourself. For them, my laziness is the ultimate explanation for everything that I do and everything that I believe. Perhaps they are right, but I think that it runs deeper than that. I don’t think I would be so lazy if I felt there was anything worth working for.
I don’t really know what I can do to change my beliefs. I had hoped my new therapist would identify root causes for attitudes like this and help me to resolve them, but lately all she seems interested in is getting me to accept a job. As though toiling away behind a computer at some corporation, helping to make somebody I will never meet rich, will instantly bring value to my day-to-day existence. She says that I just need to “get out there” and try something, and as I become more independent and assured, my self-worth will improve. She’s having me take tiny steps right now, steps so small as to be insignificant. I personally don’t think there’s any hope for me, because it seems to be too great an obstacle for me to overcome.