Thursday, June 26th, 2008...12:27 pm
#49: Curb Your Cynicism
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When my kids really want to torture me, they say: “It’s all good.” They know I hate that phrase. It is not all good! The war in Iraq is not good! Children starving in Namibia and being abused in New Jersey is not good! My own day hasn’t even been half good!
So does this attitude make me a cynic? Undoubtedly. But it also makes me old.
I think the young like the “it’s all good” thing because they still want to believe that everything happens for the best. That guy that broke their heart? There’s a sweeter one around the corner. Didn’t get the job? Wouldn’t have liked it anyway.
I’d like to believe this too. But cynic that I am, I can’t. Still, it’s all better if you cloak that negative viewpoint.
Chill out, Pam. It’s all good – for somebody. Look at all the poor little rich kids of War profiteers who will get additional gifts this Christmas that they’ll never use because they don’t have time to use them all. Look at all the vendors who will get to spend less on their products because of the cheaper child labor force Thailand has to offer. Think about how much cheaper it is for everyone to vacation overseas because the dollar is dropping faster than one of Galileo’s gravity tests. It’s all good – for somebody. Sorry about that. Gee, the inside of my cheek is hurting from pressing my tongue against it too hard.
I don’t think the evil young are less cynical than the old. If anything, a lot of them are even more cynical. Shows like the Daily Show, the Colbert Report, Southpark, Family Guy, and Futurama are practically half hour shows of complete undistilled digs on ‘the man’ and the 1 percent. unlike the good old folks though, the evil young have healthier bodies and are forced by school and college to be less sedentary. We also somehow seem to think that though the world stinks, in our personal lives we’ll have a mansion, a cute lover, and a hundred puppies. Ok, so maybe the evil young aren’t more cynical, but Im not sure that they’re any less.