Note: the following is only inspired by recent events and is in no way an attack on the perpetrators of said events against the author of this blog. This is intended to be more philosophical than narrative in nature.
The primary tenet of Cynicism is that you can't trust peoples' motives. Further, you can't trust people period. Think about it, from the least to the greatest, just about everyone has been let down or even stabbed in the back by someone they trusted. Even Jesus was betrayed by Judas Iscariot. Granted, Jesus knew this was coming, but that's beside the point. The problem is that you can't trust imperfect people.
You can't trust yourself either, but at least that's more or less something that you manage to screw up on your own. The decisions of other people are more or less completely out of your hands. Thusly, the inherant mistrust of others on the part of the Cynic. He sees what he has done to others, he sees what his friends do to others and he is under no illusion that circumstances somehow uniquely favor him. In the end someone he trusts will betray him, but in order to keep the damage down to a bare minimum, he scrutinizes every motive and every action of every person who professes to treat him kindly.
And sometimes even the Cynics among us are lax and are brought down a few pegs. That's been the case with this Cynic in the past and will continue to be so until the end of time...
Posted by Vengeful Cynic at June 17, 2003 12:43 PM