Thursday, September 4, 2008

A naive cynic

Health warning: if you prefer to read "what a wonderful world" thoughts and feel-good powerpoint messages, please don't read any further. Of course, anyone who is reading this, and who sees the previous sentence will read right on, even if they do actually prefer happy thoughts and always keep forwarding those irritating soppy emails.

A colleague today noticed and remarked that I'm too cynical. I think he meant sarcastic, but anyone of the two terms would have been correct. What an awful combination. Someone, please, can I have a character transplant?

I can't deny it, and I can't help it. I see too much hypocrisy around, too many contradictions, too much mediocrity, cruelty, suffering, injustice, irrationality and sheer ignorance. Once a person, who meant well, told me I'm a baħnan, which is Maltese for naive, too good, innocent, stupid, honest all together in a single two-syllable word. This was because I insisted on not taking an unfair advantage over others. On occasion I'm told I'm naive in assuming that an event, a person, a competition, whatever, is honest unless the contrary is proven. It seems the opposite is the standard practice. One should assume that people are corrupt and processes are flawed.

So, am I cynical or naive? Surely it can't be both? Maybe getting older is corrupting me too. Not my honesty, but my world outlook. So many people preach Christian values, and then practice anything but Christianity - except of course for the obligatory Sunday mass... So many people are nice to others, and then speak the worst about them behind their backs. Country leaders utter hostile messages couched in diplomatic language. Politicians say the right things in front of the cameras, and do the exact opposite in private. A foreign footballer transferred to a new team says it was his lifelong dream to join them. Yeah, right, of course...

How do you prove a strong suspicion, for which you have no evidence? You cannot.

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