Cynicism is a disease.

That is not to say that I do not succumb to it, only that it is easy to hide behind the smirk, the jaded, knowing laugh or the crinkled, disbelieving eyes.

Cynicism is a disease.

Like any cancer, you tend to feel your bowels go first, followed by the proverbial balls to do “what needs to be done”, replaced with the convenient “what’s the use?”

Almost any subject can be viewed with cynicism, don’t you think? Simply because, as the phrase “having a cynical eye” suggests, cynicism is a matter of interpretation. Of judging, or pre-judging, rather. Of having decided before-hand the many failings of an idea, of seeing it swallowed in a sea of relational moments between that idea and your own trumped-up hopelessness.

Cynicism is skepticism taken to its extremes; disbelief bleeds into incredulity, and then into scorn while assuming a world-weary pose. It’s sickening because it is defeatist. This age, like the last, moves forward as if there remains no unexplored vista over the horizon. Isn’t that sad?

And fabulously absurd, too. The cynic wallows in his own sollipsist mud, sure in his own knowledge, and sure in his own experience; no wonder the older among us are more cynical, because the older you get, the more you think you’ve seen.

Then comes the secret lament: “but it’s hard, otherwise!”

Christ, if it wasn’t hard, you wouldn’t know you’re alive, dammit. Isn’t that the point?

You won’t find a Diogenes amongst cynics today. Oh no, cynics today appear to be glutted on the ‘world’, which is after all why they can afford to display cynicism. It’s not about virtue, really, it’s about the pose, the attitude, thrust up as shields against ‘reality’.

It’s an insidious form of escapism, because cynics acknowledge ‘the real world’, and then dismiss it as yet another iteration of yet another cycle of hope turning to despair.

Cynics are idealists who have betrayed themselves.