Did you enter the month of August as a whimsical, happy romantic who always stopped to smell the roses? Were you full of the zest of life, waking up and singing with the morning birdsong before embarking on a pre-work morning stroll?
Yes, I hear you cry.And now, in the fullness of October, more than 65 days into lockdown, do you find yourself looking back on those days, shaking your head in exasperation and sighing at your naive foolishness, your well-meaning but clearly misplaced joy at life?
Have you perhaps slipped into a more cynical frame of mind? Perhaps you have. And perhaps this worries you slightly. After all, you were always brought up to believe that cynicism is something practised by a wizened old hermit, who’s forgotten how to speak and merely grunts and shakes his fist at the sky, in a permanent state of despair and loathing.
Fear not.
While this isn’t far off, and perhaps an apt description of how we’re all feeling at the moment, there is a phenomenon known as positive cynicism, a potentially more digestible approach to the school of thought.