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Adrian's avatar

These quotes feel more illustrative of pessimism than of cynicism.

“I’m too old to start working out; that’s for younger and fitter people.”

“Ha! I can’t even save $5 from my paycheck… I’m going to live in a cardboard box when I retire!“

Can you explain to me why they are cynical?

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Aayush Naik's avatar

You're right that these examples are pessimistic. For me, cynicism is when you distrust someone's (including your own) motivations or intentions. In these examples, there is an implicit mistrust of "people who advocate working out a lot" or "people who advocate saving money." I've written more clearly about how I think about cynicism in another essay I wrote: https://www.anticynical.com/p/anticynical-10-cynicism-to-skepticism. Thanks for engaging and sorry about such a late reply!

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Ishan Shanavas's avatar

Good luck with Synthesis Aayush. You have a lot going on here. Keen to see how this evolves :)

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Aayush Naik's avatar

Thanks for the support, Ishan!

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