Am I a cynic?
I know I'm an idealist. I have seen that the human being can be a warm, wonderful creature, overflowing with love. Even when such acts are beyond practical or even sensible, I've seen compassion and kindness and love. I've *seen* them, so I *know* they're possible. Knowing such things are possible is sometimes the sole fuel that permits me to continue reaching farther than my grasp when I do things. Living life the way I wish with the people I wish is a concrete example of that.
I have seen some pretty awful things done by this same species. I am fortunate that I've only read or heard of some of the particularly unspeakable evils, that I have not been killed outright by my family or my society because of my race, religion, or sex. But I have heard and I have read accounts that fill me with dread. I have enough of an imagination that to even come close to picturing these things happening to people I know or people I love would be a horrible, horrible thing. But they happen all over the world.
This species, which is so capable of love and warmth and beauty and art is the same species that produces such furious, senseless horror.
So I find myself examining this animal and an immediate example is myself. I dig as deep as I can, I look at those around me and try to place myself, if even for a moment, outside the realm of human and see the species.
What I see is this: a species of dogs, of animals, just like their brethren, scrabbling and scuffling for each their own piece of whatever they can grab. They are greedy, selfish, hungry, grasping assholes without any sense of tribe or species save what feigning one will get them. The acquisition of a big brain has allowed them to trap more cleverly what they can't catch in open pursuit, to lie more readily to themselves about their nature and their motives.
So, I'm cynical.
But!
I'm still an idealist. There are rare instances, delicious blips in this heaving mass of flesh, of people who I call altruistic, who see farther, who try harder, who try for something bigger than they are, for something noble and just and truly civilized. They are beautiful, shining beacons. They are greater than those around them, tall, beautiful, awesome creatures.
They are usually struck down in brutal savagery.
So I beg pardon if this crazy combination of cynicism and idealism sometimes rains on a parade here and there, but if it helps, I'll be dead in a hundred years and so, probably, will anyone else reading this. But the things that I see, I'll wager, will still exist.
I guess that makes me a realist, too.