How I Started Hating People

“Cynicism is the sickness of my culture
We undress each other with an evil eye…
Don't stand alone and cast your stones at her
Unless you think you're innocent yourself”

“Cynicism,” Josh Garrels

Two weeks ago, a forest fire nearly burned down my home.

In the ensuing week, evacuated from my neighborhood with no information about the condition my house, I watched the news. This was not easy. I already find newscasters to be distasteful, but they proved unbearable when I relied on them for life-changing news. My stomach turned as I sifted through the misinformation of a woman with barely concealed glee in her eyes and unconcealed mousse in her hair, giving her an appearance not unlike David Bowie from Labyrinth.

I became convinced the newscasters were deliberately withholding information, heightening uncertainty to boost viewership. They were heartless faux-people who operated solely to enhance ratings.

An undercurrent of derision began flowing every time I turned on the TV, and I justified it because of my plight.

The problem was, it wasn’t only newscasters. As I drove from the fire zone, my evacuation was impeded by dozens of people who parked their cars, often in the road, to take pictures and video footage of the nearby flames. And then there were the dozens of people who weren’t really affected by the fire, but still posted theatrical updates on Facebook to garner the awe or sympathy of friends.

People started emitting a subtle smell, a selfishness I fancied that I, among all people, was perceptive enough to detect. I began to wonder if even some of my friends were not exempt, if they were in fact being kind to me only so they could boast later about how selfless they had been to a real life evacuee.

Inevitably, the piercing eye I turned to others found a mirror (because the measure you use in judging others will be measured back to you), and a host of demons surfaced. My distinctive brands of depravity hooked themselves to loudspeakers only I could hear, stood under spotlights only I could see, and who among all those wicked people out there could offer comfort in my affliction?

Goodness seemed to me a scab, one that bled with the slightest scratching. Or perhaps a bad makeup job, smearing if touched.

The ailment I was experiencing is probably known to most people, and is usually neatly packed into the word, “cynicism.” The term suffices, but people rarely mention the strong element of fear inherent in the cynic’s way of thinking. If you can’t trust goodness in others or yourself, the world becomes a lonely and fearful place.

In an interview with TED, Andrew Bird tells about “a person who’s been so successful at defending themselves from heartbreak that they’re left to do the deed themselves.”

The cynic is adept at defending against heartbreak. He can spot potential danger at a mile’s distance. She can taste a drop of poison in a barrel of wine. Man’s true motives—the evil everyone else was too blind to see—are deciphered and then exposed, cut off before they have a chance to harm.

But when the cynic has been successful, when he alone has ousted every grand deception, he turns to find that he is now a solitary figure in a bleak land, and the sword he used to cut now turns against himself.

So it was that as I fled my house, condemning newscasters and everyone and myself, that I found myself alone among friends, and no one to defend me from my own evil eye.

To be continued next week…