There's a
difference between Skepticism & Cynicism.
While skeptics
may doubt, and do not accept an IDEA without understanding it fully through
logic/experience, Cynics take a PERSON, or worse, Human beings in general to be
flawed, by nature, and as driven by selfishness, greed, anger, lust, false ego.
Doubts come
and go. A cynic assumes beforehand the worse to be true. Not trusting the
goodness of people around, often without a thorough examination. There is no
margin for imperfections left before adjudging a person as untrustworthy. If a
person is not seen as pure white, that has to be black, in a cynics book.
What is
beyond a cynic’s grasp is, the thoughts, emotions or tendencies of the mind do
not define a person. Neither are qualities - good or bad - permanent. Any thought
or action is a product of a person’s state of mind at that moment, the
situation, and past impressions – that is Karma.
Judging a
person by any of his past action or word, taking it to be a line on stone is not
only unwise, it transforms healthy skepticism into hard cynicism, turns love
into hatred, alienates a person from people around, brings loneliness and
depression, and in turn, makes a person fiercely defensive of his views, going
in a stonewall so as to be somehow guarded from pain. They begin to see
sensitivity and innocence as fragility and vulnerability – a weakness. And take
pride in smart cynicism as an ability to ‘see through’ people.
But pain is as much a beautiful part of life as joy is. One just cannot insulate oneself
from pain. And neither should try. As anything one tries – So called ‘positive
attitude’, defensiveness, sarcasm, escapism - will be superficial. Pain is
there for a reason. It gives depth and new insights, brings loved ones closer
to support you, and reminds you of impermanent nature of things.
Human
beings do not come in Black or White. There are all shades of colours,
different at any given moment. Thoughts change, emotions change, opinions
change. Nothing is worth holding on to, except the realization that our true
nature is pure consciousness, which gets hidden by imperfections, which are
just distortions because of ego and past karma. This is an understanding that
Indian mind sciences give, with its source in the Upanishads, and is best achieved
through experience, not by intelligence alone.
A cynic’s
view that human beings are essentially flawed and have to be disciplined - or
have to be fearful of God sitting somewhere in heaven - in order to behave is
more reminiscent of desert religions. And
that gets reflected in psychological theories that originated in the west. That
thoughts and actions are a product of deep-rooted fear or memory of some events
of the past, and that makes up a personality. The same discipline of psychology
does take different phobia or emotional disturbance or depression as issues
that need help.
The point
that i look to arrive at in this write-up, essentially a reflection at the
approach taken by many to make sense of the world, is that cynicism causes so
much negativity that it is a sure-shot path to depression. (As emphasized in
paragraph 5 above.) As such, it should also be viewed as a tendency that needs
help to come out of. A vicious spiral not only harmful to the person involved,
but also the people around who get pulled down by the negativity.
Thanks for
reading. Please do leave your comments, as i look forward to your views and a good discussion and new insights.
लोकः समस्त सुखिनो भवन्तु
-BhairaviParag
