To Not Become Cynical — VerifyYourBrain

I first became aware of Matthew McConaughey a few years ago when he started appearing on all my favorite podcasts all of a sudden. He was promoting his then new book/memoir, Greenlights, a phenomenal treasure of a book that made me fall in love with him. Not for the drawl or the eyes, but the outlook. There is more wisdom in this one man than in several "experts" I've heard speak on health and self-improvement, all rolled into one. I understand he's also done a bunch of programs focusing on mental health and improving your life since his book came out.

I remember liking his book, though I read it some years back, and have hopes of rereading it in the near future. I find that helps. Returning to books that meant something, after enough time has passed, to see how they affect you. If they do.

Meanwhile, I listened to this Lex Fridman Podcast episode that McConaughey was a guest on last year. I'd seen a truncated clip on social media that resonated with me, and I wanted to understand the context. It seems a lot of people online take excerpts from famous podcasts and butcher them to send a more "empowering" or impressive message. Knowing the speaker as a truly wise man, I wanted to know what had actually been said.

I still found myself resonating with the initial bit, but that wasn't the part of the interview that impressed me the most. No. What impressed me most was something McConaughey said when Fridman mentioned the people who'd hurt him. Fridman was saying how oh, in your life a bunch of people have hurt you and betrayed you, has that made you trust people less?

It seemed to flow naturally in McConaughey's tale of ownership and taking charge of his own life, yet as soon as the host posed the question, McConaughey shot it down. He said absolutely not. That cynicism is a plague in our society and that one needs to fight actively to cull it from one's life. That really made me pause and ponder.

At the border between naive and cynical

I used to be quite naive. Very trusting by nature, very open. My driving tendency was always to assume the best in people. So it happened that often in my life, I'd become quite excited about new people, thinking they really were all that. Most of the times, they weren't, and I ended up disillusioned. A few times, I got hurt.

I noticed that, as we grow older and acquire more such hurts, we develop a hard shell, covered in cynicism, that we think will protect us. Sometimes it does. The trouble with that shell is that it also protects us from good things, so to speak. Keeps good things from entering our lives because we're unwilling to trust. For some, that is a worthwhile trade.

I understand cynicism because it's the psychological equivalent of first responders emergency care. If you're in an accident, for instance, paramedics will work to stop blood loss and get your body in a stable running condition. They won't, however, work on ways to make you less prone to future automobile accidents.

Therein lies the key to our cynicism. We keep treating our broken bones with emergency care. Except, once the emergency passes, that kind of care risks doing more harm than good. Many of us become cynical and embittered as a way of hiding that deep down, we're still as naive and trusting as ever. Just with a whole lot of intervening hurt, as well.

It's a dangerous game, not only because cynicism isolates and harms you, but because it's not truly protective, either. Clever people know how to bypass cynicism if they truly want to hurt you. Good people, though, might not. So what you're doing essentially, you're starving your inner, fragile, trusting self of good interactions. Limiting bad ones, also, but I don't think fully eliminating them. In the meantime, so drastically reducing interaction that it makes you wonder what's the point.

Like all bandages, cynicism shouldn't be worn for longer than the prescribed period.

While temporary converings can be useful, most wounds need to breathe to heal. They need exposure to the world. Careful, tender exposure. But still, an antonym to hiding.

As McConaughey says, it's an ongoing battle, to keep yourself free of cynicism when the world naturally hurts you. Which makes it all the more worthwhile. Not everything that's difficult ought to be abandoned. As the old adage assures us, you get what you pay for. And when it comes to your soul, no treatment should be too dear.

So maybe instead of becoming cynical, a better cure would be to become wise. More self-aware. To temper ourselves a little, so as to allow that vital breathing space between when we meet someone new and when we allow ourselves to get fully, truly, wonderfully excited about them. You can achieve wonderful, rewarding things by remaining aware and fully present. By observing interactions as they unfold, not as you project them in your head, or how you expect them to, thanks to past experiences.

There's a fine line between

Everyone will hurt me

and

People will occasionally hurt me, but even then, I will be fine.

I think true resilience and growth comes when you embrace and learn to live by the latter. After all, it's almost impossible to ever fully know someone. Even after years. So say you meet someone and you know them for 30 years. If you're cynical, presumably you will eventually drop your cynicism to allow this person in. If you don't, that means you live the next 30 years buried inside an air-tight tomb. That is its own death.

Most people, however, can't shield themselves forever and, after they reckon enough time has passed, they'll drop the guard.

But what is enough time, in an interaction that's constantly changing, evolving, showing you new things? In which both of you will change and perhaps have to face unpleasant truths about each other? In that scenario, it seems unsafe to let out the trusting, naive, easily hurt child after an initial period of protectiveness.

Which leaves your only real option - remain fluid. Observe the changes in you, in the other, in your relationship. Be curious. Populate your vocabulary with "oh"s and "ah"s. This is what we're doing now. This is what it looks like now. Okay. What do I do with this? How do I go from here?

You'll waste your entire life, trying to block attacks. When perhaps, the real focus should be how to keep yourself upright and moving slowly forward.