"Call Me a Cynic"

I can’t even say I know exactly what brought this on. In all honesty, my life is pretty much right where I want it to be right now. Could it be that my own contentment is causing me to reach for something about which I can complain? I wouldn’t put it passed myself. But this lacks a target, a trigger or catalyst. It’s almost like my mind has been subconsciously stowing away these minute observations into little filing cabinets and now the piling-up has left me feeling so self-important I feel justified in my succeeding rant. Either way, it’s eating away at me and it’s going to happen.

I’d first like to note that the people whom I respect the most seem to believe the human race to be inherently good. These people live under the assumption that the world isn’t out to get them, that the other people with whom they come in contact have nothing to gain from hurting or exploiting or manipulating them. This arguably naïve logic is probably the source of my admiration. Or envy, depending on how you look at it. I trust no one. Like any way of thinking, it has its pros and cons, but living the “guilty until proven innocent” alternative is hardly an ideal way to go about new social interactions. I’m usually good at masking immediate judgment, but my gut instinct rarely fails me with regard to pinpointing someone’s character.

What happens, though, when what you want and what your instincts tell you to be true come into conflict? Better question. What happens when the conflict reveals itself and the former validates the latter? Why is it that, as humans, we tend to overlook the truth and hold to our beliefs that people are different from what they truly are? That they can honestly change? What makes us think we’re so special that we hold the ability, the right to make people change? And the parties expected to change or mold or accommodate (which includes everyone, at one time or another, really), why is it that, at times, we agree to do so even when we can’t honestly say we are willing and able?

I say “we” because I have been at both ends of the spectrum. I have believed that I could be better for someone, that I could mold myself to be what he wanted and needed to make it work because I was afraid and thought it was what I wanted. I have also been so over-confident that I believed I could be the one to change someone’s entire outlook on life and make him see that maybe he needed me as much as I needed him. I have both given and accepted hurt, and in many cases, it has been overlooked in order to achieve some future goal or hope or flawed perception of a desire. Hell, I could be blinded into believing someone could have changed right now, but I’m not about ready to delve into the topic of my forever-effervescent paranoia. What I don’t understand is why we put ourselves through these things, why we trust too much or too little or overlook logic when pertaining to matters of the heart. To gain experience? Because it’s familiar?

It makes my skin crawl to know that as I sit here, typing these obviously rhetorical questions and potentially sounding incredibly pretentious, this entire tirade will remain inconclusive. I won’t understand why we don’t have the innate ability to see when someone or something is untrue or not good for us. I won’t be any closer to grasping the concept of how a person can run right back to something even after realizing it will only do them more harm than good. Is the naivety a sign of vanity to the degree that we perceive a false possession of power, or a sign of weakness and fear of change? Contrarily, I’ll never understand why we put up walls, shut people out and not just let ourselves need every once in a while. And I’m not even meaning to single out romantic relationships here. I’m trying to find a balance between all human relations, between friends, family and the like.

I realize that I’m practically begging for some middle ground, which is not nearly as attainable as I’m making it sound. The idea of settling for something less than what is truly desired and deserved is just something that drives me up a wall. People will only change, not when pressure to do so is placed upon them, but when they want to change, and that will only happen when they know what they honestly and truthfully and genuinely want, when they find something or someone that seems worth it, and the change may not be a conscious effort. Does that make human beings a race unknowingly driven and powered by ulterior motive of self-benefit? Like you didn’t know! I guess the only conclusion here is that you may be able to open up and poke at a neurotic cynic’s mind, but little can be done to change the way it thinks.