Cynicism

What if cynicism isn’t a mood—but a leak in the soul?

A shrug where there used to be concern.
A joke where there should be grief.
The quiet convenience of not caring too much.

Cynicism is easy. It’s clean. Detached. It doesn’t ask much — just that I stop believing people mean what they say. That I assume the worst and stay out of the way.

But I’m starting to see the cost.

Cynicism doesn’t protect me. It isolates me.
It doesn’t sharpen my thinking. It numbs it.
It doesn’t make me wise. It makes me small.
And worst of all — it spreads.

My daughter asks why the sky is pink at night. I feel the tug: don’t bother, keep it surface. Just say “it’s pollution.” But something in me resists. Because even in a polluted sky, there’s awe. Even in a cracked world, there’s wonder.

I can’t afford to teach her contempt.
Not by words.
Not by tone.
Not by silence.

Cynicism isn’t neutral. It’s corrosive. It poses as realism, but it erodes meaning. It convinces you that caring is naïve, that belief is embarrassing, that nothing matters anyway.

I’ve lived in that posture—arms crossed, heart shelved. It took devastation to show me what that costs. To remind me that life is fragile and astonishing and always closer to breaking than we think.

Hope isn’t soft. It isn’t cute. It’s a damn fight.
To keep loving, even when it feels foolish.
To keep showing up, even when everything's a mess.
To keep reading the bedtime story, even when the world feels like it’s on fire.

Hope demands something.
But it gives something too.

Every time I choose presence over apathy, care over contempt, I feel it — that small defiance. The quiet resistance of doing something tender in a world that dares me not to.

So tonight, I’ll read the book. I’ll sing the song. I’ll believe — just a little more than I did yesterday.

Because hope is a practice.

And cynicism is just the gravity I refuse to give in to.