So Long, I-Cynic.com
Rick Bayan, author of a few books on Cynicism and other topics and webmaster and sole contributor of http://i-cynic.com/ wrote this goodbye to the readers of his monthly tirades. It’s beautiful. He gave me permission to post it here. Thanks Rick. Hurry back.
(I’ve shortened this some, here’s the link to the full version http://i-cynic.com/dec_02.asp )
“Hello I Must Be Going”
So the time has come for me to stop inveighing against the times in the grand manner, to dismount from my charging steed and find him a suitable green pasture with fresh grass to nibble on. I’m about to trudge off into the sunset like a more curmudgeonly Charlie Chaplin, grumbling as I go. I could probably find employment somewhere as a writer of brochures or a compiler of home-repair reference books. I could attend optometry school and finally discover a useful trade. I’d be financially secure but vaguely discontented and full of trapped spiritual gas, as I was before I wrote The Cynic’s Dictionary all those years ago. Probably I’ll always need to fling words. I just won’t be flinging them in the form of monthly tirades.
Over the past six years I’ve tried to give a voice to one of our most neglected minority groups: the intelligent and sensitive outsiders who constitute a vast, overlooked fraternity of the thwarted. Society makes it difficult for such gentle outlaw souls to thrive and express their talents. Out of necessity they take jobs that grate against their best instincts; they work in environments that crush or trivialize their spirits; they put up with chronic frustration and subtle rejections; they watch the rewards go to drones and bullies; naturally they become cynics. Yet through it all they refuse to surrender their integrity. That accursed integrity: keep it and you lose; lose it and you win. But keep it they must.
These aren’t the hard-boiled, chain-smoking, what’s-in-it-for-me cynics of yore. These latter-day cynics are civilized and wounded. They’re innately decent. They’re isolated from (and searching for) kindred spirits. They’re you and me.
Sometimes it seems as if the gods have it out for us; the forces that foil us seem destined to knock us prematurely out of the great Darwinian boxing ring. Like corporations and high school in-crowds, natural selection is cruel to the misfit. But misfits don’t have to be losers; square pegs simply need to find a square hole.
I like to think I’ve provided something like a square hole for all the disgruntled, disillusioned idealists who have stumbled onto my doorstep. I understand how hard it is to lead an uncompromising life when the world rewards you for doing just the opposite. I understand how easy it is to lose faith when the rewards don’t drift your way. Don’t lose that faith, no matter how battered and exasperated you feel. Don’t let your cynicism swamp your soul and send you to a sorry defeat.
If I had to impart just one nugget of advice before I leave you, it would be this: be selectively cynical. Rant about greed and cruelty and shoddy overpraised art; don’t rant about being alive. Believe it or not, despite all the evidence to the contrary, I’m still firmly convinced that life is an astounding gift. On any given day you can find a hundred treasures out there for the snatching. Go ahead and seize as much joy as you can. After all, the world needs you at your best, happy and fulfilled — not raving at shadows in the street, not forcibly pressed into service as a team player or a chronic consumer of branded footwear.
Be merry in your cynicism, and proud. Steer clear of ideologues and fanatics; embrace kindness and heartiness and open laughter. Your selective cynicism will help you shun evil and propel you toward the good. Can you think of a better path to enlightenment?
I can’t promise you a Hollywood vision of earthly paradise, especially with all the madness lurking out there these days. You might not reap the rewards we shower upon sitcom stars and vice presidents of marketing. Your reward, if you choose to accept it, will be that you’ve lived life on your own terms, on good terms that harmonize with the music of your soul. And that, my fellow cynics, is nothing to sneer at.
Monthly tirades ©1996-2002 by Rick Bayan.
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It’s good to know that for every 10,000 common, loud-mouthed douchebags out there, there’s at least one good egg like this d00d to protect the interests of the wary, the disenfranchised, and the non-joiners. Or at least there was. Great suicide note, Bayan!
that was actually very inspirational, I just hope he wasn’t kidding.
No, it was in earnest. I love Rick Bayan.