My Own Terms

August 1, 2008, 10:00 am; posted by
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I have been called a cynic. I have been called a pessimist. I have been called a skeptic. And I don\’t mind being called these things, as long as I can define the terms myself.

If by “cynic,” you mean Oscar Wilde’s definition — “someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing” — then I am not that man. I know the value of things, but I also know there is a vast difference between gross and net value. Even something good is never quite as good as it seems to be. A man never gets a thousand dollars from life, no matter what he does; he gets $677.50 after taxes, and lives with the disappointing list of deductions accompanying the payout — if the check is even good.

When I say that I am a cynic, I mean that I am old enough to know I don’t have to order before midnight. The commercial will be on again tomorrow. And what they”˜re advertising today as “Not Available in Stores!” will be on the rack at Wal*Mart tomorrow, under the banner “As Seen on TV!”

When I say I am a pessimist, I mean that I have resolved the age-old question to my satisfaction, and believe that the glass is definitely half-empty. Any moron can tell you that a glass, left to its own devices, never again fills up. It’s constantly emptied, by consumption or evaporation, and indeed could only have been filled to be emptied. The natural state of the glass is dissipation: the occasional break during a trip to the dishwasher, storage in the cupboard, and eventually another foray into emptiness.

Pessimism gives me the greatest chance at happiness. If you always expect things to go poorly, you will either get what you expected or be pleasantly surprised. But if you expect good things to happen all the time, what then? Either life turns out the way you thought it would (no big deal), or you\’re disappointed, because it didn\’t.

And a skeptic? All that means is that I subscribe to the ancient philosophy of “suspended judgment.” I like to think about things before I put my weight on them. This world could use a little more of that — with the way we jump on the latest bandwagons, use the freshest buzzwords, and buy the newest fashions, all to make us feel hip and wise.

So, yes: cynic, pessimist, and skeptic I am. But on my own terms.


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