Saturday, March 10, 2012

On cynicism, and other disquieting concerns.

They say that a cynic is never surprised. Strange it is, then, that I find myself somewhat confounded by the world, as it has chosen to present itself to me lately. Whether that indicates my having become less cynical or the world having become more confounding, I know not. What I do know, however, is that something is eating away at all social structure and the people that comprise it. It is a form of moral corruption so incredibly pervasive, that once you see it, it's impossible to ignore. 

The more I zoom out and try to view the world from a more privileged(read distant and disconnected) vantage point, the more conspicuous becomes the absence of a grand master plan. The universe, providence and random chance(or whatever else you choose to believe in) have always been indifferent. But now, so are the people. It was just naivete, ignorance, and idiocy before. Now, there is also indifference. The masses are frivolous and fickle. Fickle with their loves, fickle with their hates, fickle with their allegiance, fickle with their belief. Fickle with their ambitions, fickle with their hopes, fickle with their words, and fickle with their needs. With moral codes traded for oblivious languor, and passion for disposable cheap thrills, constancy of purpose is just about the rarest thing one could go about in search of. In a world where every one, every thing, and every idea is dispensable, what does a person place their faith in, anyway?

Now whenever I veer off on this particular tangent, I am accused of mounting the moral high horse. But it's not adherence to a certain code of ethics I advocate, it is the necessity of an individual defining one for himself and living by it. Because in the absence of the same, when perfunctory institutions like religion fail, there would be nothing left to define oneself in terms of. We'd all be jaded and shapeless blobs of indiscernible substance, with no purpose, no identity, and nothing of consequence to call our own. One could argue, that it's already happened. 

Much has been said about the gradual and inevitable decadence of the bourgeois, and the supernumerary cliches that follow. Yet, fully aware of the facts, I so desperately seek people who could pledge their lives to one idea that they stand for, who would make a conscious decision to always live by their word, and who have the courage to fight for the things they believe in. Why are people so scared of investing any substantial part of themselves in anything? I've been told that it's that same cynicism that creeps up on them, leaving them bitter and uncaring. And I am always left to wonder how and why a cynical disposition has come to entail apathy, even towards oneself.