Romantic Poetry in a World of Scientific Workshops

[Leanne]

Most cynics I know (including myself) are really romantics who are just constantly disappointed by the world and therefore projecting the disappointment as a bitter shield.

I don't need God to tell me that things should be better.  We do what we can in our own small spheres and hope that the shield is strong enough.

I sense my insufferable idealism slowly becoming some shade of cynicism.  And I don't know how I feel about that.  I feel some kind of growing bitterness towards the world for being able to change me; to shake what was once so unwavering.  But if the cynicism is just a shield to keep my more softer parts from harm, maybe I can think of it then as just necessity.  But what happens if, within the confines of yourself and this shield upheld around, you start to self-annihilate?  How do you keep from that?  What's the antidote.  Surely more than what poetry alone cannot satiate. 

When did the cynicism start setting in for everyone else?  Maybe I'm late to the party at 23.

At 23 I'm pretty sure I was still naive enough to think that it didn't matter how many times people knocked me down, I'd always want to get right back up. You're an early wiser.

I can't answer the self-annihilation thing. For a while, I mimicked others and thought that might do. It didn't. When it's eroded enough, the raw centre is exposed and the sensitivity wakes you up. You build yourself back from that template. It's not perfect, but it's better -- but there's no way to reach it, that I know of, except with time and a whole lot of abrasion.