Cynicism Revisted
One of the cardinal rules for a happy life is never to develop strong emotional attachments. In course of our interaction with people around us our lives invariably end up getting emotionally entangled with those of others. Sometime it is great because we have a strong support system to fall back upon. What a comforting feeling it is to be able to share your deepest secrets, fears, worries and more importantly your happiness with people you care about. We develop strong feelings with respect to certain individuals with whom we have close contact. We end up having high expectations of such people, feeling supremely disappointed if their behaviour deviates from what we expect of them. However social conditioning cautions us that while developing possesive instincts in any close interaction is fairly normal, it is always advisable to exercise cicumspection and not to let our emotions run away with us. The riskiness of developing an overt emotional dependence upon specific people is generally harped upon. It is like pouring out a part of your soul to someone. Gautama Budha referred to "Desire being the root cause of sorrow". It is drilled into our consciousness to question every individual's motives and to be naturally distrustful of every scenario. None of us is born a hardened cynic. Its life's experiences that force us to rethink and readjust our levels of trust and innocence.
Cynicism comes at a price though. By embracing a cynical outlook, one may protect oneself from potential hurt and pain, but what we sometime forget is that very protective shield might rob the joy that comes from implicit trust and faith in a relationship. On a parting note I strongly believe that while the sensitive are vulnerable and appear to be potential victims of unhappiness inherently they are happier in their blissful ignorance and peacefulness than the cynical whose mind is constantly clousded by fears and anticipation of potential trickery and faithlessness.
Cynicism comes at a price though. By embracing a cynical outlook, one may protect oneself from potential hurt and pain, but what we sometime forget is that very protective shield might rob the joy that comes from implicit trust and faith in a relationship. On a parting note I strongly believe that while the sensitive are vulnerable and appear to be potential victims of unhappiness inherently they are happier in their blissful ignorance and peacefulness than the cynical whose mind is constantly clousded by fears and anticipation of potential trickery and faithlessness.
7 Comments:
At December 08, 2006 9:37 AM, zoxcleb said…
One of the cardinal rules for a happy life is never to develop strong emotional attachments.
are u sure? a happy life is one where in u have someone to share it with, or so i believe.. maybe one day i'l know.. but currentyl thats my belief.
sure, the expectations shoot up, and when they fail, the disappointment is unbearable... but then, thats life. and life without variety, is not worth living.
i know where u come from on the disappointments front, but freindships make u take themin ur stride.
cynicsm, is never the way.. (been there, tried that.)
At December 08, 2006 9:48 AM, Nandini Bhattacharya said…
I am certainly not advocating Cynicism as a way of life. I just feel that at certain points, you feel your faith getting eroded and you shroud yourself in a cloak of cynical reserve and start being a lot less open than you would like to be. It may be only temporarily like the solar eclipse where the shadow of the moon masks the visage of the sun, but nevertheless it is an eclipse that envelops the earth in darkness. Friends and Family can carry you through many emotional crisises. Even when you are at your lowest ebb, you can hope that there is atleast one person on whom you can count on. Probably that is what keeps our faith in humanity and friendship alive. I say humanity here, because sometime we receive help and support from people who we do not always count as our bosom buddies. So all said and done Cynicism as a philosophy cannot live long , but while it lasts it does curb your natural instincts
At December 08, 2006 11:10 PM, zoxcleb said…
being let down is the hardest feeling to overcome, i know. it happens.. a lot.
in a comment on my blog, u spoke abt azkabaan... i think that comment is more relevant to u...
u seem to have surrounded urself with dementors, and only weakly mastered the patronus charm....
At December 12, 2006 6:14 PM, Ujjwal said…
Nandini, all I wanted to say has mostly been said by Zoxy. But I certainly believe that cynicism should be exercised when starting a relation and during the period it fully develops. On the other hand, I have personally been very happy because I have almost fully trusted my close friends.
I believe that yes cynicism is important only until you dont stop enjoying a fruitful relationship. And by cynicism I dont mean distrust but only exercising a little caution in being cynical about people's action. If we take everything to heart that does not go the way we would like it to, it robs us of the immense joy it otherwise brings. Take for example my "non INI friends" (you know whom!). If I look at it, there have been painful experiences but overall the relationship has been a ++. Being sensitive is good but cribbing out actions of others does not help matters ever.
As I have always said, try buildinig a relationship without the fear of losing someone. Just once dont question and enjoy the person and you would know what I am talking about..
At December 26, 2006 7:48 PM, zoxcleb said…
based on current events, i think i'm gonna have to agree with ur first line now. it saves one from the feeling of being let down, or disappointed.
At March 16, 2007 10:03 PM, Unknown said…
sum1 likes u
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At March 16, 2007 10:04 PM, Unknown said…
try building a relationship without the fear of losing him
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