When I was a Child

I have a vivid memory from sophomore year--in my very first literature class, I walked in, set my books on the desk, and at the first opportunity, announced I was a cynic. My old, wise, literature professor reacted as I never would have expected. He let the comment slide, asked me too his office afterwards, and gave me an hour-long chat on the evils of cynicism. Namely, cynicism poisons the soul. A cynic is "a person who believes that only selfishness motivates human actions and who disbelieves in or minimizes selfless acts or disinterested points of view." A fixation on cynicism closes the mind to the very ability to recognize good. It separates the individual from the good of humanity and leaves them only able to look for a way to appreciate the spectacle of everyone else's ridiculousness. Oscar Wilde is good for a laugh, but he wasn't very personable.

Life is funny. I have been a cynic for most of my thinking life, yet now I find myself in a position of thinking that one should know life is hard, people are evil, and happy endings are not inevitable, and yet "laugh at the days to come." A position of knowing optimism. Whether this is the correct way to view the world, I don't know. It is entirely possible that I merely swung from one extreme to another. But for now, I do know this. Life is much happier as an optimist than as a cynic.