A cynical look at cynicism

Woah, where have I been??

I thought I was caged up when I was in the cube, little did I know I could be harder on myself than those grey-sky colored walls ever were.

I've been stuck in an unfamiliar place lately. This place of distraction and apathy. And the amount of stress here is just tacky...tacky like blow-up lawn ornaments and bad landscaping.
I turned off the radio, I avoid my former beloved New York Times, I ignore the news, I pick up books only to put them back down bookmarked for no return. I bite off any bitter tasting idealistic conversation that stirs around me, (sorry Doog...)

Today, an old book came to mind, out of the clear blue sky, really. No one mentioned it, I didn't see it anywhere, I wasn't even sure if I still owned it. But the thought crossed my mind that...huh, I wonder if I need to read that one again. Turns out, I do.

In one of the first few paragraphs it reads; "There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold ... our life is a sketch for nothing, an outline with no picture." A sigh of relief.
When I look back at some of my old blogs, I see I knew this before. I knew that nothing mattered and I was good and comfortable with that.

For as cynical as that all sounds, I was quite the happy little do-gooder when I hung tightly to those beliefs. Ironic.

But then I look at the picture frame next to me on my desk, given to me by best-boulder-bud Kristina, and I realize that I read what she had written in it for the first time in months, just this morning. After a beautiful anynonymous quote, she then wrote, "to living life with no sense of time."

Hmm. Nothing matters and there is no sense of time.

Then I come back here and sift through some old blogs and I find that I wrote, just last summer; "I am here for those less fortunate than me, I am here to make their time worthwhile. Because if life is temporary, then so are our relationships, and so is our "purpose". So let's not stress ourselves with the pursuit of the "answer", let's dance the baby steps. Let's start conversations. Lets laugh with people who forgot how. Lets learn the names of the people we pass on the bench. Lets listen to those who have lost their voice."

Not so cynical then, right?

Then I look at this "place" I've found myself recently...and it's so very different. Its so very...cynical. And, more irony.
I am in a job where I am doing exactly what I said I am here to do...I am with children every day that have been born into a different world right here alongside ours...I am laughing with them, learning with them, exploring with them and sometimes damn near crying with them. I am at best, I hope, helping them.

Why then have I built my own cubicle around what feel like small moments of success at work?
I am more cycnical than "nothing matters" and "no sense of time". I am more dishonest than when I was a "corporate sell-out". I am more stuck then when I wandered the carpets of an office.

I need to take a step back, to the "heaviness". I need to let go of this timeline I've been tangling myself in lately. I need to let some robin-hood-rhythm back in to my life. I need to let some old, overused, senior quotes make sense again, ya know? Like, "don't take life too seriously, you'll never make it out alive".

Life is temporary, and I need to start living like I believe that again, and not like I am taking stock in every moment of my future with every moment I'm living in my life now.

Heerrrreee we go again folks, hands up!