Know anyone who’s so cynical, it paralyses them from enjoying anything?
I have a few friends, who are so negative, so cynical that they need to either dis, be critical of, or make fun of almost everything. It must be insecurity, or something, but it’s so tiring, it’s almost insufferable.
Really, it’s just snobbery taken to the nth degree. And it makes you look and act a thousand times more douchey.
I’m starting to become cynical of the cynical. Flee from me!
Often I think I’m one of the types you’re talking about.
Me too.
Me three.
I think cynicism is a natural part of becoming jaded with the way things just are. And I can see how tempting its grip is. But then, I started to notice just how negative I was becoming. And I says to myself, self I says, this is a sad, pathetic outlook on life. And am now free, free I say! to still hope this economy will get better sooner rather than later, or my client is maybe not so much of a huge fucking idiot (that’s a big maybe), or to even like Nickelback. :eek:
Curb your cynicism. It’s holding you down.
Meh. No, wait. That’s apathy. Rats.
Yeh, no… apathy is totally cool. But whatever, I don’t care.
I think you nailed it in the OP. Exaggerated cynicism is a sign of insecurity. The cynic is afraid if he expresses a positive opinion about anything someone else will belittle him: “Oh, you find that new show to be entertaining? Well, I suppose it’s amusing enough for the sort of people who watch television.” Some people become afraid of this type of response so they begin mocking everything so nobody can ever mock them. And they end up becoming the kind of person they were afraid of.
The cure is to develop a little self-confidence in your opinions and not worry about what other people think.
Sometimes I do perceive myself as being better and wiser than the people around me, but I try to make fun of myself as much as possible to keep it all in perspective:
Person: “Do you know if the Bruins game started yet?”
Me: “I don’t watch sports.”
Person: “Oh, okay.”
t could have ended there, but…
Me: “Here’s where I live:”
Me: holds out fist
Me: “Here’s a rock.”
Me: places hand over fist
Person: “Laugh laugh laugh I’m glad I have friends”
Mission accomplished!
I don’t know anyone so cynical that they can’t enjoy anything, but I do know some people so cynical that it’s difficult to converse with them on anything substantial. You can’t talk about politics, or society, or technology, or anything else because it simply degenerates into “everything sucks and there’s nothing anybody can do about it”. Even if some particular thing doesn’t suck–say, a cool new smartphone–the conversation gets redirected to something like “great, that’s just one more way for the government to track us” or some other nonsense. Yeah, fine, I get it–but sometimes I’d rather talk about the positive aspects of stuff.
Been there. Done that. Will likely do it again. Luckily I lose interest in doing nothing quickly.