cynical musings

     It's hard not to become cynical. I wonder how much of it is circumstance and how much is choice. When you cling to an ideal and it fails you. When you believe you're doing the right thing, and the people closest to you are against you. In other ways, you know where you fail. Sometimes sacrifices are necessary. Then how much of it is a choice? Where do these ideals come from? Are they being defended properly? Are your actions in line with your beliefs?

    Does anyone notice how it's much easier to speak to someone rather than speak about yourself? Excavating and analyzing the emotions, thoughts, and actions that are with us always is difficult not only because we may not like what we find. I find a difficulty that is expressed in the metaphor that the brain analyzing itself is like a ruler attempting to measure the length of itself. How do we know what we are without the reflection of others? Then how do we cope with the reflection being blurry or strange or ugly? Also, does it not become a mirror reflecting another mirror? What can we control about identity and what can we not? "Hard is perception, easier is blame/ Is this the only life for everyone, isn't it the same?" - Gene Clark, Life's Greatest Fool

    Identity seems to be, unsurprisingly, entwined with culture and society. Then why is it so common to hear "that's just the way they are"? The idea that people are unchanging and static is common and pervasive. Though we can not define people without a general understanding of culture and society, which appears to change frequently and rapidly. There's also the undeniable element of genetics. Nature vs nurture. People are born with a certain genetic structure that, from my understanding, does have a great effect on a person's identity within a culture and society. 

    In today's politically correct world, it's easy to imagine a society that would protect disadvantaged people from the notion that genetics plays a strict role in determining the capabilities of an individual. Especially if the society is a meritocracy in which efficiency is demanded, yet wants to project a developed morality. You'd want disadvantaged people to be as efficient as possible, which would require some amount of hope on their part. In my view, at least, you don't want hopelessness and depression as that would negatively impact the efficiency of the progress-driven meritocracy. 

    The obvious question arises: who is this progress for? Is it so we can maintain this society which greatly favors a relatively small group of capable and highly capable people? Which, by the way, is only a distinction made relative to other people and has no inherent greater morality or virtue. If our goal is for this progress-driven meritocracy to have a trickle-down value, where the more progress made at the top is inevitably given to the people at the bottom, I think we should expect more virtue from our highly capable people. Greed rampages in a world where people fear being at the bottom of the totem pole. In this sense, greed is fueled not by ambition but anxiety. In an anxious mindset, people become self-focused and lose their virtues. Hopelessness does the same.