The sad, cynical facts of modern life

The saddest part of my job and just life, generally, I think, is not just having to listen to all the self-fulfilling cynicism that animates too much of life. It is watching people deal with the ugly consequences of that cynicism.

Today, I read one such story.

The Bride of Wildenstein

In a world that is as cynical about love and the role we take for granted that it plays in our lives as it is about liberty and a similar and comparable value it offers us, this story is one of the saddest miniature tragedies of the consequences of that sad, deluded cynicism.

I've never understood why people were so cynical about love. And then wondered why they didn't find the kind of love they wanted in their lives. I've also never understood the cynicism that people have about freedom and then wonder why their aspirations and their willingness to do the work to live their dreams fell through.

It's all so clearly self-fulfilling prophecy to someone who has experienced a lot of love and achieved a lot of the things I have cared about in life and still aspires for more of both.

Most people are both sad and foolish on this count and so many counts, I think, where it matters. Most people want love, but don't really take it seriously enough to offer it and thus receive it. So they start to rationalize more cynical motives for marriage. Like money. Or power. Or sex and beauty. Whatever stupid, foolish flavor of cynicism appeals to them.

It is the most difficult part of teaching the kids I teach.

It is not the kids, though they are quite the handful. It's not the pay, which of course we always wish was more.

It's the cynicism. It's everyone betting against what they know they should be betting for, no matter how clever you may feel each time that you might be right.

Children, no matter how shitty they are, need people to love them and be in their corner. Love, no matter how much we want to give up hope on it, needs people to nurture it and take it more seriously than our cowardice to face ourselves and how we sabotage it. And freedom is the only context in which we will ever be able to take responsibility for the fact that the reason that love does not always work out and the reason why our children don't always turn out the way we want them to turn out is, generally, our own fault, no matter how many which ways we want to spin it. And the most hopeful fact of our existence is our ability to face up to that fact, to take responsibility, and to build a life on something more real and honest.

Cynicism is our cover for why we never took our most serious responsibilities in life seriously. It is our cowardice to face ourselves and our own failures, especially our failure to own up and do what we need to do to turn things around.

And the face of Jocelyn Wildenstein is what it looks like to live that cynicism and cowardice without reconsideration.

She, like the rest of humanity that daily affirms her cynicism, deserves our compassion.

Because how tragically and needlessly people suffer when they just can't find the courage to love and live a life they love, for real, and settle for cynicism and cowardice instead.