Me, Myself, and I Muse on Cynicism

I: Those wiser than I would have it that age must of necessity bring cynicism; but I, perhaps through fault of youth, must disagree.  Cynicism seems rather the result of a loss of hope, a small step forward on the path of despair.  Must I, simply by repeated and unwilled rotation about the sun tread down that path?

Myself: Well becoming a martyr might offer a simple alternative.

I: I don't believe that is in my power.

Me: What after all is so bad about cynicism?  Is it so much to be feared?  Perhaps it lends its weight to the wisdom of the aging.

I: Is cynicism then the cost of wisdom?

Me: The two oft seem entwined.

Myself: 'Tis a petty price to pay if it were for the greatest treasure of all, as doubtless wisdom is.

I: Yet I would not pay it.

Myself: Then have it not.

Me: How harsh a saying.  Perhaps you have already begun to taste deeply of the well of cynicism.

Myself: Nay, but a certain healthy cynicism keeps one from expecting too much of others, like a dash of salt upon a meal.

I: There is truth in that.  I, by nature, am certainly inclined to cynicism: I expect the worst, but still hope for the best.

Me: Hope—there you have the key of it.

Myself: As long as the key opens a door, I find no fault with it.

I: If I look at Myself—

Myself: I?

I: Yes, I that is—I cannot help but see that flawed and cowardly as I am, there is no hope and cynicism is the natural response.  Certainly a lifetime of effort spent in exhausting my strength in seeking to produce some fruitful change in the world would leave me as dark and gloomy a cynic as ever was.

Me: Then not to become a cynic must mean the existence of something beyond Me.

Myself: Granted.  You need only look about you.

I: Hope grounded in the world, in mankind, in Myself is worthless.

Myself: Sadly, true.

Me: Open the doors then to the world beyond Me.

Myself: And Myself.

I: And I.