danny

i discovered today that i’m a cynic. now i can reconciliate with myself.

after giving it some thought, i was glad to discover i am one. more because it is good to know yourself that for its current social and moral implications, though morality for me is not part of the issue at all.

cynicism is all about believing that men do things on regards of self-interest, discarding sincerity, altruism or even virtue as the reasons of our behaviour. and i trully believe it being like that.

i’ll give you an example of how i see it. a banal one to start. suppose i offended my wife, and i come back home with flowers. i might say i’m doing it for her to feel better, that i’ll apologise because i feel sorry and i don’t want her to feel bad. but isn’t it because I ant her not to feel bad? may it be due to guilty, fear or plain commodity, i do it for myself. if she forgives me, i’ll feel better (may it be for reassurance, peacefulness at home or even to get some).

another more profound example. if i give money to charity, my favourite charity, that one that “really” helps children in the third world or aids out of africa, i might argue that i’m doing so to make this world abetter one, to help lives and such-and-such, fill with your favourite charity reason. but am i not doing this because i want a better world (on my terms and under my definition of a better world, by the way). isn’t it because it makes me feel better? more useful? a helping hand? but those are acts not frown upon by society (not the fight or aids, my response to them).

let’s go deeper. suppose i move to another city because my beloved one lives there, but she asked me not to do it for her. it is obvious i did it for her? for her here means “her as the main reason”. but is she the main reason? am i not looking to spend more time with her? and why else that because I enjoy her company, her laughs, her body? am i not doing it for myself? (of course, her point was different, she just did not express it right: she wants not to feel responsible for my decisions, or even owe me something morally, but she’s the one that does not kno what she wants. i do. i moved)

of course, this are cynical arguments. but going beyond the label, when do you do something that is not on your best interest? when do you actually do something for someone else?

ok, this is something that has not happened to me, so take it hypothetically, as a speculation. suppose my best friend commits a murder in order to save me from being killed, and he might get time in prison. suppose i decide to turn myself in for the crime, to spare him. after all, he saved my life. so, ok, here i’m doing something for someone else. but then, let’s see what will happen if i don’t do that. then he goes to ajil, 15 years. and he wennt there for me. no one else knows, but i might feel guilty forever. here’s a man that loses 15 years of his life and all for saving my life. wouldn’t i feel guilty? i guess that’s a very possible feeling. for the whole 15 years. so (and it gets very cynical here) didn’t i go to jail instead of him for not feeling guilty?… let’s push it. suppose he dies a year after i’m in jail. how would i feel? sad, i might. but regarding the prison issue. wouldn’t it be possible that i feel it is not fair anymore that i’m in prison? why? wasn’t the whole point for him not to be? am i perhaps seeing it like there’s no one out there to acknowledge my sacrifice? then, it seems (if that was my sentimental choice, to feel unrecognised) that i was doing it to prove something to someone. and to prove something about me. so it seems that if i have to prove someone else something about myself, then i’m just in need of an excuse (a continuing excuse) for my decision. and that is almost like trying to prove something to me. if the example holds water until here, i might be doing it for me….

there’s an advantage for me in this reasoning. a corollary in itself. if you do things just because of your own interpreting of what the world is, and your own definition of causes, then you’re more free to be yourself, even if that gets to be a very creepy self.

i might revisit this in the future. but i think there’s something here most of people don’t want to put a finger on, and some just can’t. which makes it most interesting. after all, our comprehension of the world is uttermost biased. or as schopenhauer put it: “Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world”.

what a cynical thing to say(?)

ps: he also said “If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it”. it goes more with the issue here in question.

i guess i’ve been moviefied (songified sounds weird, but it could apply as well)

is it all those movies i’ve seen? is it lack of contact with real life? don’t think so, i’ve had my share of life, and i even wonder now and then when will it stop.

you know movies like existenz? or matrix?… less corny: have you ever felt you’re living with a soundtrack?

is it bad that movies give you hope on an otherwise dead-ended issue about your life? is it wrong to dream about having a happy ending? about kissing the girl? even about saving someone from suicide, or my personal favourite: that someone unnoticeably realises that you’re doing that terrible thing to make that person’s life better. or even, even… even finding someone who can magically perceive that, all under those layers and layers of mud, roughness and cynicism of mine, lies a good person. a very good person.

yes, i agree. i’ve been moviefied.

(well, at least cynicism pays back, and works well)

…suddenly, private gartt stopped screaming.

– he must be dead! – screamed carston.

of course he was dead. we were all dead, already.

i continued reading the letter. it was so difficult to concentrate with all the bombing, all the mud, no light at all but my zippo. i knew, i felt i had to read that letter. i was about to die, i knew i was not coming alive of this one, and i knew i had to read that letter before it.

the bombers continued crossing the air, leaving an amusing line of fire behind their propellers. the hinged cove i was in was stained with many colours, and sure, one seemed to be blood.

“my dearest simon, this letter might catch you already in the fields…” it started. she was not aware on how true it was. i continued reading, almost transported from the battle by the smooth, continuous, prudent handwritting, my mind quenching the need of tranquility, the urge to have a paceful, meaningful, private death. until i started smelling the cornfields, hearing the tractors, finally being happily suffocated by the hot, humid summer of my cantril, iowa…