cynical sutor I wonder sometimes if our generation is more cynical than those before us. Or is it just the nature of young people to be cynical? When we grow older, will we grow happy, leaving the next generation to grab onto our cynicism where we drop it? Or is this bitter brooding I see in my peers a product of our times- a growing awareness of a world full of overwhelming problems and concurrent powerlessness in implementing solutions? Well, I tell you what, kiddo! We can't afford our brooding blue mental masturbating any more! If you're tired of what the big corporate nasties are dishing out, the best thing you can do is embrace life and all its undeniably beautiful wonders. Don't even try to tell me they don't exist. Keep all that wonderment in your heart and fight for it. Fight like hell. Read the paper every day and write a letter to the editor when you see something that pisses you off. Take the time outside the grocery store to sign that petition to get an initiative on the ballot. Volunteer to stand outside the grocery store yourself. Contact your local green party office and go send out mailings or put up posters for an hour. It's not that hard after you take the first step. And you'll have a window into hard-won victories of dedicated artists of social change. And that will show you why there's just no reason to be cynical. Trust me. 000709 ... Wayne Stupid cat is trying to eat my hand. Is activism really the cure for cynicism? 000709 ... birdmad maybe it's an oxymoron but i'm a cynical idealist 000709 ... whirligirl i think we're cynical. because i thought young people are supposed to be idealistic and hopeful and bright, enthusiastic. we are not. was it nirvana? ... the 90s, the decay and end of an up-and-down century and it seemed like nothing more could possibly happen except Armageddon? impersonal commercialism? TV? yuppy parents? i dunno... but while sarcasm provides witty relief to the ironies of life, yadda, cynicism feels more like a defense mechanism. building and building and building. but i think the worst is over. there will be no Apocalypse. there's stuff to do, voices to be heard aplenty. places to grow. our generation is so much stronger and more complex than the others. we're not shaped by any wartime psychodrama. a clean slate for everyone. don't let those yuppies tell you that you can't *really* affect any change... 000709 ... moonshine 2012 000710 ... MollyGoLightly my problem is that i am not cynical enough. always the trusting bouncy one. woot. 000710 ... guitar_freak How can one not be cynical in this age? The whole world revolves around wordly pleasures. Money and possessions are the obsessions of everyone around me. When everyone tries to please everyone else and nobody seems to think for themselves anymore, how can you have much hope? Nothing inside seems to matter except to the therepists who make money off it. 001118 ... *CatMeow* i'm a cynical hypocrite... in university, don't go to class, probably going to fail, don't really care, but i know i'll need this education eventually, and that pisses me off, disillusioned completely with the world, bitter about the most innane things, but i can still see the beauty of a bright summer day, when the sun is shining and the air is warm and sweetly succulent, or a midnight trip to the beach in the dead of winter to look up at the stars.... cynical hypocrisy, it's GREAT! 001212 ... MollyGoLightly cynicism's for pussies. 010521 ... girl_jane As I sat in the passenger seat of your car, staring out the window at the three stars of Orion's belt, you broke the silence. "I finally have the chance to do something I've always wanted to do." I looked at you so you knew I was listening. "I have that number to call. You call and you buy a star and they name it whatever you want. The next girl I go out with for a long time, I'm going to name a star after her." "How do you their not selling you a used star and you're wasting your money?" "Well, aren't we a bit cynical tonight?" "Sorry. I told you I haven't been myself lately." So I went back to concentrating on the three stars in Orion's belt. I wonder if you'll name a star after me someday... 020207 ... girl_jane As I sat in the passenger seat of your car, staring out the window at the three stars of Orion's belt, you broke the silence. "I finally have the chance to do something I've always wanted to do." I looked at you so you knew I was listening. "I have that number to call. You call, and you buy a star, and they name it whatever you want. The next girl I go out with for a long time, I'm going to name a star after her." "How do you know their not selling you a used star, and you're wasting your money?" "Well, aren't we a bit cynical tonight?" "Sorry. I told you I haven't been myself lately." So I went back to concentrating on the three stars of Orion's belt, wondering if you'll ever name a star after me... 020207 ... girl_jane Ignore the first one I posted. As I clicked the 'blather' button, I noticed some things I wanted to change. So I stopped the transfer, but I guess it posted anyway. 020207 ... silentbob When Harry Met Sally Harry Said: Oh, really? When I buy a new book, I read the last page first. That way, in case I die before I finish, I know how it ends. That, my friend, is a dark side. 020207 ... Cynical Bastard If you wake up today, wishing it was tommorow, you just may be... 040620 ... imaskitzo cynáiácal CYNICAL implies having a sneering disbelief in sincerity or integrity. MISANTHROPIC suggests a rooted distrust and dislike of human beings and their society. PESSIMISTIC implies having a gloomy, distrustful view of life. Yep that's me 041031 ... Crotchety What is it everyone's so cynical about? Is it something to do with the global supply chain? The inevitability of wealth aggregating in the same way as planets and rivers? The fact that 3000 years of mercantile activity is the best alternative to cave living anyone has found so far? Would anyone like to propose some other solution? Has anyone even identified an actual _problem_ outside of their personal struggles with boredom and loneliness? Newsflash: Boredom and loneliness have nothing to do with The System or mass consumerism, or media manipulation, and everything to do with laziness. Want to cure your cynicism? Get off your ass. 050523 ... andru235 the assertion that 3000 years of mercantile is better than cave life is somewhat difficult to be certain of, unless you claim to have lived lives beforehand - a claim i am, in fact, open to. if mercantile life is so much better, tell me, please: why did the native americans, the european druids, the mongols, etc. resist conversion attempts so very bitterly? they were open to barter, yes. but barter is not mercantilism. why did it take military conquest to bring these peoples to heel? if mercantilism is so superior, why does it rely on inferior methods of persuasion? read _Ishmael_ by Daniel Quinn. humans have been telling themselves elaborate stories to justify their having 'civilized', if one can even call it that. incidentally, cynicism means "scornful or mocking of the motives of others". in mercantilism (and especially capitalism), personal profit is held above all else. in tribal societies, personal gain is considered absurd and ridiculous. it is literally a ridiculed concept. so if cynicism leaves a distaste in one's mouth, blame mercantilism: fault certainly doesn't lie with the communal tribes!!! p.s. communism 'failed', not because the concept is flawed, but because the modern human societies are not sufficiently advanced to handle it. disdain for communism = Aesop's fox and the sour grapes. lots of foxes around these days. 050523 ... andru235 by the way, nature is lazy. "no it isn't!" watch ants for an hour: they take breaks all the time. watch tigers. trees. snakes. bears. grasshoppers. flies. bees. bacteria. grass. we are the only species so obsessed with work. and we say it is because we are advanced beyond nature. but the minute a man is horny, he says, "well, i'm naturally programmed to be horny." and when women reach mid-age some say, "well, i'm naturally programmed to desire children now." can't have it both ways! and nature is lazy. and if one is so above natural tendencies, please, show me your superior ways of not eating and breathing. "but...but...beavers always work!" yes, but the beaver has obsession. long after the dam is built, it keeps gnawing and gnawing at trees for a dam it never builds, nor needs to. hardly a paragon of superiority. (of course, beavers aren't inferior either.) 050523 ... andru235 NEWSFLASH: boredom and lonliness -do- have to do with the 'system', consumerism, the media, etc. etc. read: _Stiffed_ by Susan Faludi. read: _The_Story_Of_B_ by Daniel Quinn. read: _Brave_New_World_Revisited_ by Aldous Huxley. read: one of the millions of books on these very topics *not* sponsored by large corporations with vested interests. but will you? i doubt it. the same indignation you express with people who are dissatisfied with the way things are is your own dissatisfaction with the way those people are. viscious, and blinding, circle. of course i know better than to think anything will change your mind, short of extensive independent personal research. and who wants to do that? its easier to blame people for themselves. if people are solely responsible for their own problems, why bother teaching children things? surely learning to function in society is their own problem they have to deal with by themselves. 050523 ... andru235 oh, and also: the aggregation of human wealth is anomalous. this isn't what nature does at all, including planets and rivers. you see, nature "hates vacuums" and everything is constantly diffusing. yes, there is a gravity about things also; but these forces work in tandem more often than not. if hoarding is the way of nature, why did life spread to each continent? why isn't one continent a rain forest and the rest, deserts? (("well look at the planets!")) ((ok. we don't see biological life as we, the humans, define it, but that's like saying your next-door-neighbors aren't humans because they have different traditions than you do.)) and if the argument is that a large mammal hoardes nutrients, one must also observe that upon passing, these nutrients are shared with the entire rest of the hierarchy, especially with the lowest of the low. not how it happens with humans! i tire of the short-sighted thinking and unresearched, antipathetic, scapegoating tirades. but this isn't your fault: it really isn't! you are the product of all social programming you have not resisted. those who have stepped back from the programming enough to watch it happen will recognize your thought patterns immediately: blame the victims, declarations about the 'cave' from someone who has (%99.94 probably) never lived there, no empathy for the low combined with reverence for the high...etc. now you will be mad with me for speaking frankly about this, and you will polarize even further in your ways of thought. oh well. "but the fact that things are as they are is obviously the result of people trying to make things that way!" duh. but you'd never dare use the same justification for 1940's China, Germany or Russia, 1970's Cambodia, 1990's Rwanda (it isn't only Whitey, folks!), etc etc etc. "well that isn't the same!" the only way around that is to employ the infamous 'double-standard'. and no-one likes finding themselves discriminated against because of someone else's double standard. oh, but that's their own fault for being different, is that the argument? yikes. 050523 ... LS Actually, I predict a spiritual revival of enormous significance. We are slowly realizing that the possessions and the money and all the programming is ultimately unfulfilling and will seek to fill THAT vaccuum with a healthy dose of the metaphysical. Up and Down. Thats the world in a nutshell. 050523 ... andru235 LS, i hope you are right. i suspect that you are. 050523 ... realistic optimist cynicism is realism without optimism, in fact, it is realism without responsibility. cynics rationalize behaving in the very way they decry because they say "it doesn't matter" because everyone is behaving that way. cynical is how useless old men become. 050523 ... realistic optimist hrm birdmad called himself a cynical idealist. how likened unto my name that sounds. 050523 ... god HEADLINE: optimist found drowned in bathtub half full 050524 ... emmi i never intended to be... but here we go overly cautious prejudgemental cynic meanie 060512 what's it to you? who go blather from