And So If You're Feeling Cynical...

Oh, I'll settle down with some old story,

About a boy who's just like me,

Thought there was love in everything and everyone,

You're so naive!

They always reach a sorry ending,

They always get it in the end,

Despite any earlier rants that you might have picked up on on this blog, I now realise that we all have our foibles and our quirks. We've all got a way of dealing with change. Mine, or rather one of mine, is clearly this blog. If something bothers me, it usually finds itself on the surgical table of Blogger waiting for dissection. Through what I write here, I change a lot. I explore problems and even though they rarely come to anything near a satisfying conclusion, at least they've been tried, at least they've been attacked.

Everyone has their own way of dealing with change, and though this is mine I can see the others. It might be to ignore it. Or to let it take it's own course. Or it might be to ignore it and pretend you're letting it take it's own course. Hell, I don't know. You might feel like screaming at it sometimes. You might actually scream at it sometimes. You might feel like life isn't worth living. You might decide to take that view into practice. You might not think any of this is happening at all. You might think that you're the master of your own destiny. That's fine. Don't feel you have to read this.

What troubles me is that my views seem so different to everyone else. My best friend, my girlfriend, my family. If I speak to them about how I feel, they're usually great. They'll nod, try and work out something that will make me feel justified. They'll laugh and tell me how right I am. But I don't think that really they mean it. I can see that at times they're plainly terrified of what I'm suggesting - my brutal suggestions, my brash remarks, my rough demeanour. When I earlier published articles about society, group politics and the like, they were met with a large degree of surprise and - I think - a certain amount of fear and loathing. I was damned out of line!

Cynical? You think I'm cynical?

I sat back, because it was quite an assertion. And also, because I didn't really understand what they meant. Some people just didn't like what I was writing. But to find someone who thought I had a skewed view on what life was like...

Maybe they're right. Maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way. I'm quite prepared to accept that life is not as dark and dry as I make it out to be. But at the same time, I don't feel safe believing anything else. The Larkin-esque hole I find myself in when I come to write to you, the Reader, has been created by pacing back and forth between ways of life. I must admit, I suppose, that I don't always believe in what I write. But I suppose it's because I don't like Belief any more.

Are you like the boy who thinks there is love in everything and everyone? Are you searching for the Happy Ending? I suppose that, if you are, you probably disagree with me when I launch into an article on the problems with the people around me. I suppose I'm the naive one. But what makes you so damn sure that the world is so rose-perfumed? Is it something spiritual? Something lazy? Or something born out of the fact that everyone else has they eyes wide shut just like you?

Of course. If we all close our eyes, we know we're equal.

Still it was worth it as I turned the pages solemnly, and then, With a winning smile, the boy, With naivety succeeds, At the final moment I cried, I always cry at endings...