Tag Archives: cynical

Bad-mouth

Bad-mouth: (v) to criticize (someone or something); speak disloyally of.Dictionary B

  • Tongue-in-cheek
  • Satire
  • Sarcasm
  • Cynical
  • Jaded

Now, each one of these words is probably considered to be its own entity, but I would contend that what we have here is a descending process toward losing one’s faith.

Because somewhere along the line, joking about the need for change and beginning to just bad-mouth humanity because you’ve abandoned all passion for the race are two quite different things.

Maybe in my own simple way, I could clarify my meaning by giving you definitions for each of these steps in this decline:

  1. Tongue-in-cheek: humorously pointing out a contradiction in our philosophy which shows a need for change.
  2. Satire: comparing that little piece of hypocrisy to previous hypocrisies in a jocular way.
  3. Sarcasm: similar to satire, except accompanied by more of a sneer, a jeer or even a leer.
  4. Cynical: sharing an angry humor over the futility of human effort to achieve anything of quality, while portraying a nasty edge
  5. Jaded: a loss of love for fellow-humans, which also causes one to feel unloved.

When you live in the monkey cage, it is alright to joke about the odor or maybe even the over-dependence on bananas–as long as you freely admit that you are contributing to the stink, and certainly possess the same addiction to the fruit.

 

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Available

Available: (adj) able to be used or obtained

There are a few great principles that just make life work better.dictionary with letter A

Fortunately for us mortals, they are simple.

  • Our attempts to complicate them do not actually improve their quality.
  • Our instinct to ignore them does not negate them.
  • Our decision to embrace them brings a sense of true joy to our hearts which greatly increases our power to endure.

One of these primary precepts is this: happiness is when we begin to believe that what is available to us is our blessing.

Just imagine how content we could become if we thought a box of macaroni, eight slices of cheese and a can of tuna were the makings of a meal instead of symbols of our poverty. Tuna and macaroni and cheese. It is edible, you know. And if we access the spice rack, we might just be able to turn it into a delicacy.

I am only miserable in my life when I convince myself that I am cheated by what is available.

I become giddy with my journey when I take what’s available and turn it into the “Magical Mystery Tour.”

So what is the trick? Here’s what I choose to believe:

What’s the harm in using what’s available until something better comes along? Who knows? What is available may be enough.

And if not, I would rather fill my time being inventive with my resources … instead of bitching about them. 

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Auld Lang Syne

Auld lang syne (n): times long past.

dictionary with letter AI was working on a screenplay for a Christmas movie which I had dubbed “Wonderful,” tipping my hat to the style and meaningful nature of Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

I have a way of writing plays or movies that’s a little bit different. I love to know how I’m getting into the story, developing the character and creating the conflict, but I do not want to look ahead to how the movie ends.

I once heard another screenwriter explain that writing a movie was “all about knowing how it was going to end.”

I’m sorry. That just seems foolish to me.

Since none of us know how our lives are going to end, why would telling a great story be benefitted by controlling the circumstances of the closing scene?

So I know it may sound weird, but I always let my characters decide how the movie’s going to end. After all, in both the short and long run, it is their story.

So when I reached the end of this particular movie, I found that the scene was evolving towards a romantic, if not bizarre, conflict, which needed to be quickly pulled together before the credits had completely rolled.

I needed something.

I remembered during the closing of “Wonderful Life,” they were all singing “Auld Lang Syne.” I didn’t want to have a typical, maudlin rendition of the song, but I thought a bluesy, melancholy, updated version would be perfect to cap off things.

So I sat down and wrote myself a musical preamble to the old standard, hired a great female caterwauler to intone the arrangement, and then just let it happen.

It was so beautiful that I cried.

You see, when you take something which has proven to be effective and you mess with it just enough that people know that you’re updating it for the times, and then let it work its magic, it is usually absolutely amazing.

Music has a spirit. There are certain tones that come together to produce emotion; chords that evoke sensation.

And this is why, when we do become nostalgic, the singing of “Auld Lang Syne” takes even the more cynical of us… to a place of reminiscent bliss.

 

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Archaic

dictionary with letter A

Archaic (adj): very old or old-fashioned

I am of the belief that human beings do need things in their lives that are “fashioned.”

Yes–well-constructed, organized, purposeful, sensitive, gentle, aware and involved.

Without these “fashioned” virtues, we begin to rely on our own understanding and become a prideful lot, not worthy of interaction.

Unfortunately, no one ever uses the word “fashioned” without adding the prefix “old.” So at the whim of any cynical individual lies the weapon to disembowel great ideas, emotions and courtesy.

We also can attack art because it dares to reflect a stream of intelligence from a former time.

Certainly music cannot contain any beat, lyric or sentiment that was ever expressed before, lest we become slaves to our history instead of innovators in techno-pop.

Here’s my criterion for determining whether to use something that is well-fashioned: has it survived the past, still works today and has all the signs of being universal for the future? If the answer is yes, it is not archaic, just underused.

So I am not going to be discourteous just because the tendency leans in that direction.

I’m not going to be surly in order to appear focused and stubbornly irreversible.

I’m not going to reject the beauty of poetry because a generation of numbskulls have deemed it corny.

And I’m certainly not going to follow the bigotries of my time which have been conquered–often by the blood of martyrs.

Before you call something archaic and throw it in the trash-heap labeled “old-fashioned,” just make sure we can actually live without it.

 

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Approachable

dictionary with letter A

Approachable (adj): 1.friendly and easy to talk to 2. able to be reached from a distance.

Ten things:

1. Don’t be dark and mysterious. James Dean is dead and so is the “brooding human.”

2. Value the power of ignorance because it makes you more accessible to other people. There is no such thing as a know-it-all. Such a creature ends up knowing nobody.

3. Laugh. Preferably at yourself instead of others.

4. Don’t feel the need to be the savior of the world. Instead, start filling sandbags to hold back the flood.

5. Don’t be sure. People who are sure have to later lie about either what they believed or about how successful it was.

6. Do not be a respecter of persons. The minute you assume that someone or some group is better than another, you’ve cut yourself off from a large portion of the earth.

7. Don’t talk about God. Live God.

8. Show up in a consistent mood. It doesn’t have to be good–it just has to be predictable so people aren’t wondering whether Jekyll or Hyde will show up at the party.

9. Believe in something. It’s too easy to be cynical. It’s also very lonely.

10. Learn something every day–and be prepared to admit it.

Approachable is when we’re not afraid to be human, but instead, revel in the uncertainty of our humanity.

 

 

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Anticipate

dictionary with letter A

 

Anticipate: (v) to regard as probable; to expect, predict

 

The key to life is to possess a treasure of optimism, which is pilfered sufficiently by your pessimism, to welcome realism.

In other words, if you lead with pessimism and pilfer with optimism, you never actually become realistic, but instead, cynical.

If you try to lead with realism, you usually end up favoring either optimism or pessimism, tainting your original adventure.

This makes the word “anticipation” nearly obsolete in the lifestyle of those who want to move forward with a sense of achievement and good cheer.

Because quite honestly, if I anticipate that my family and friends will continue to love me with the intensity I desire, I am always disappointed with the natural human drop-off.

If I anticipate that my next business foray is going to be a bonanza, I will be only adequately impressed if it reaches my wishes and greatly despaired if it doesn’t.

Anticipation, unfortunately, is what people believe faith is meant to be.

The thought is that rallying behind the concept that having hope that a certain conclusion must be achieved is the best way to trick oneself into excitement and intimidate the universe into compliance.

But faith is actually an optimism which is adequately interrupted by pessimism, thus creating reality. For after all, faith is the substance of things hoped for (optimism), the evidence of things not seen (pessimism).

I get very nervous when I get around people who anticipate that the project we are pursuing is going to be a roaring success.

The wise steward of all good things is always joyfully stacking up boxes … while simultaneously perusing the room for additional containers.

 

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Antecedent

dictionary with letter A

Antecedent: (n) A thing or event that existed or logically precedes another.

I, for one, am personally enraged over the comment.

“All’s fair in love and war.”

I don’t know who had the audacity to throw love and war into the same mix and assume that they are achieved through similar motivations.

There is an antecedent to love, and certainly a different one to war. The two are not the same. And one would have to be extraordinarily cynical to believe that they are triggered by similar emotions.

Matter of fact, if you can find the antecedent, you can pretty well guarantee love, or at least something that is a delightful replica.

And if you insist on the antecedent for war, grab your helmet and grenades.

I believe the antecedent for love is contentment.

I’ve never seen two people who allow the seeds of discontentment to take root who can maintain their affection, but instead, become picky and fussy with one another.

What is contentment? Contentment is a decision to find our joy and peace of mind working with what we’ve got instead of complaining about what we lack.

The antecedent for war is jealousy.

It manifests itself sometimes as greed. Other times it parades around as ambition. But somehow or another we convince ourselves that what other people possess was misappropriated and needs to be taken away from them by force and placed into our stockpile.

What is jealousy? It is a lack of contentment because we’ve convinced ourselves that in some way we’ve been cheated or that someone we considered to be our inferior has risen to the occasion to be our equal.

As you can see, love and war have no similarity with each other whatsoever. Matter of fact, love would find it difficult to spew hundreds of bullets into the night air against unseen faces which just happen to be wearing unacceptable uniforms.

“All is not fair in love and war.”

Love doesn’t look for fairness. It works towards compatibility.

Of course, war is never fair. It’s the illusion of superiority… which always makes us look puny.

 

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Anesthesia

dictionary with letter A

Anesthesia: (n.) drugs or gases designed to create insensitivity to pain prior to surgical procedure.

It occurred to me while standing in the breakfast aisle at the local supermarket.

In previous years, I complained about going shopping and having rude little children point, giggle and laugh at me simply because I was a fat man.

On this day, what crossed my mind, standing next to the Honey Nut Cheerios, was that I couldn’t remember the last time that I had such a confrontation with a little one in the marketplace. I wondered if it was because our children had gained a new sensitivity and had ceased to mock unusual people.

Without being too cynical, I seriously doubt that. There is certainly as much prejudice around today as in any other time.

So it baffled me a little bit.

But then I realized–the secret to this absence of ridicule did not lie in the children, but rather in me.

  • I had stopped looking for the pain.
  • I had ceased to probe the room for disapproval or listen for the slightest chuckle.
  • I had learned to go about my business.
  • I had accepted the great anesthesia of confidence and peace of mind, to free me from the need to be pricked and probed until I screamed out in displeasure.

Maybe the kids are still laughing. But I am dull to their critique.

Maybe when I come zooming by, they poke each other, point and giggle at me. But I am already gone.

The glory of anesthesia is that necessary surgery can be done to our bodies without us fighting the treatment.

May God give me the anesthesia of soul satisfaction so the surgery that He needs to continue to do to my heart … will be painless and profitable.

 

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Andersen, Hans Christian

dictionary with letter A

Andersen, Hans Christian (1805-75): Danish author noted for his fairy tales, such as “The Snow Queen,” “The Ugly Duckling” and “The Little Match Girl.”

I ferociously attempt not to become cynical.

Matter of fact, I consider cynicism to be one of the more dangerous vices in the human nuclear arsenal of available missiles.

But at the same time, I grow weary of ideas that appear to be optimistic but really are pandering to an ongoing philosophy: “normal is the best.”

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the work of Andersen with “The Ugly Duckling.”

I don’t think we understand the message of this particular tale. What is communicated to me is that a little bird who appears to be an ugly duckling has to hang on through its grotesque phase, because in the end, the bird will end up in the “Kingdom of Normal”–as beautiful, evolving into a swan.

Is this really what we want to communicate? What if you are just an ugly duck? What if you aren’t an emerging swan?

What if you just plopped out of your mother with an incurable dose of homely? Is there room for an ugly duckling who doesn’t become a swan–to still gain acceptance, or even prosperity?

I know my man Hans thought he was being generous of spirit by portraying that those who were less fortunate or not well-endowed should persevere to someday gain place in our society.

But the place he promised them was beauty. We don’t all end up beautiful! There is a whole majority of the human race that has to learn to become functionally ugly.

  • They will never be airbrushed.
  • They will never be gorgeous.
  • They will not achieve stunning.
  • And they certainly don’t become swans.

So understanding that Mr. Hans was trying to bring honor to the Andersen family by putting forth a positive message, it ends up not being very Christian.

Here’s the truth:

Sometimes ugly ducklings stay ugly and only gain beauty and value … through determination.

 

 

 

 

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Amalgamation

dictionary with letter A

Amalgamation: (n.) a mixture or blend: e.g. a curious amalgamation of the traditional and the modern.

I love that word.

Matter of fact, I will go so far as to say that our society is an amalgamation of many amalgamations–some good and some bad.

I think the best amalgamations are when an obvious need is blended with a willing spirit, culminating in a needful revelation.

Let me give you an example:

People in our country are too cynical. One of the ways we’re cynical is that we think everyone has the right to disagree with the fact that the country is too cynical.

It’s not a vote.

Cynicism is obvious because we prefer to stagnate in unworkable ideas instead of pursuing risky options that might require greater commitment. So if we admit that we’re cynical, we can concur that we need a willing spirit to consider other options, rather than sitting over coffee talking about how miserable everybody is.

Minus that willing spirit, cynicism is no longer an emotion. It becomes a philosophy.

But if you have a willing spirit, you can develop a sense of adventure to try some new things and weigh them in the balances, to see what works and what doesn’t.

Otherwise, you begin to question whether the whole process of growing and expanding is really necessary in the first place.

Politics, religion and entertainment have sunk into a quicksand of cynicism, which tells them to remain very still because if they struggle they might sink faster. But here’s the truth: even if the best reaction to quicksand is to remain still, you will eventually have to get out of the mire, or your life will be useless.

We need an amalgamation in this country–recognizing our cynicism, repenting of it and welcoming new ideas, even if many of them seem ridiculous and without merit.

Because honestly, the funniest story that could be told: Thomas Edison sharing about the experiments that failed to work … on the way to the light bulb.