[Rhyme or Reason]

Some people call me a cynic. For better or worse, that's evidently the lens I have opted to view the world in (and ramped up to 11 since being redpilled). The problem I've found is that it isn't helpful to oneself. Or constructive. Or healthy.

I still believe a bit of cynicism can be helpful, as in knowing who to trust and who not to. For knowing when you're being bullshitted.

However I've found the more you give into it, it becomes a feedback loop and a self fulfilling prophecy. When you look for reasons to see the negative side of everything, well...your outlook becomes negative...which in turn affects your mindset...which produces real, tangible, negative results.

If you look for the dark side of everything in life, that's all you see. Staring into the abyss, and all that...

Now if you were to ask me "When has being overly cynical impacted your life in a negative way?" I would have to say that it's difficult to determine exact moments. But I can confidently say it's the overall lowering of the bar of how you see other people, their intentions, and the world, that closes you off from the positive things in the world, and it's plain to see that produces less than stellar outcomes.

RVF poster Beyond Borders had a post on his bog that touched on a similar subject, which I pasted below. When I read stuff like this, it makes me think "What the fuck is wrong with the way I view the world?" Unfortunately his blog appears to be down but I pulled this up on the wayback machine:

Quote:

How (and Why) to Make Everyone in the World Your Friend
Posted on December 1, 2015 by Beyond Borders • 8 Comments
Do you ever feel alone…?

Or, like every person who bothers to interact with you wants something from you?

That people only open you or approach you to serve their own interests?

That the random interactions you have in your everyday life are meaningless, pointless, and shallow?

At a young age, it always struck me how there could be thousands of people around you, the houses and the lives inside them stretching for miles, and yet you’d still feel all alone.

But Are You Really Alone?

Or just alienated by way you respond to the people around you?

In a recent thread at the RVF, a guy was struggling with depression, and I interpreted (right or wrong) that one of his issues was constantly trying to seek out social interactions that would produce a result – like trying to meet the coolest people or find hot women who were all alone so he could try to seduce them.

Here’s a guy who lacks the social skills to break into these circles or seduce women of this caliber…

Yet every moment of his life, he’s sacrificing chances to connect with the people around him.

Haven’t we all been guilty of that at times?

It’s like how always thinking about some theoretical “later” can rob you of the riches in the present…

Constantly Seeking Out Those Perfect Social Situations Robs You Of The Social Potential In Every Moment.

Among some other pieces of advice, I did my best to describe how I constantly interact with people as I go about my day.

How I constantly joke with people or talk with them or do them small favors.

And I also mentioned all the ways this pays off.

You can read that post here if you like.

He replied that he’d tried doing something similar to that, but that it seemed most people he encountered were people he would never meet again, and that it therefore felt “shallow/empty/meaningless.” That it was pleasurable and enjoyable but producing no results.

You know what…

It’s Hard To Truly Connect With Others When You Only Do it to “Get.”

After all, if you just want a result, who is making it meaningless and shallow?

It’s only that way because you frame it that way in your mind.

That’s a choice.

And it’s a perfect example of how your thoughts affect how you feel.

It’s this type of thinking that makes everyday social interactions “wasted” and leads to nothing ever coming of it…

And it’s one of the reasons so many people feel alone.

Here’s How I Frame My Constant Reaching Out.

It’s my way of making the world a better place.

If I leave a smile on someone’s face, I made their day better.

If I change someone else’s dark thoughts and re-establish their hope in humanity, even for a moment, to me that’s worth it.

If I shake someone up and make them laugh, well, yeah, it’s fun for me too, but if laughter is the best medicine, in a way I may be healing them.

If I shatter some local Filipino guy’s perception of “rich, selfish foreigners who think they’re better than us,” or, back in California, some minority kid’s perception that “white guys are afraid of me,” I’ve broken through someone’s ignorance and forced them to question a poisonous stereotype.

I’ll Give You Some Examples Of How This Thinking Manifests in My Life.

The other night, this really big Indian guy walked by my in the club, and I could see he was fucked up. I stopped him and we bullshitted for a little bit. Friendly enough guy, just wasted.

I told him he should drink some water, and he said, “That’s probably a good idea.” And his eyes swam a bit, but he just went back to his corner of the bar.

I ordered a glass of water, walked up and tapped him on the shoulder, handed it to him, and then walked away. You should have seen the look on his face…

He came up to me a little bit afterward telling me, “You’re a good man.” Dropped his business card on me and said if I was going to be in Manila he was really established here and to get in touch.

A couple nights later, I was walking back from the 7/11 with these two broads, and two Filipino guys, University students, I think, were sitting on the steps. One was helping the other, who was trying his hardest not to puke. A block later, I saw a little convenience store, so I told the girls to wait. I went inside, bought a bottle of water, walked back, and gave it to the guy to give to his friend.

The girls were looking at me like I was insane…this isn’t an environment where you interact with random strangers on a dark street or go out of your way for them.

But the gratitude on the guys’ faces that I should do such a thing for no apparent reason…to me that’s all the reason in the world to do it. I shifted their perception of other people – their perception of foreigners.

Now, A Cynic Might Argue I Did These Things To Impress The Girls.

In both instances above I had girls with me. Your everyday “realist” will tell you that was my motive.

Stay away from these people.

Because they are poison.

They’re always looking for “reasons” behind good deeds, and they’ll always find them because they’re looking. And if you buy into that thinking, it will make you and your problems worse.

The thing is I’ve done this very thing when I was all alone, more times than I can count, and will do it time and time again in the future.

I’ve been doing just that most of my life.

And even if you could argue I do it to make myself feel good, isn’t it still better than the alternative?

Let Me Tell You Another Story That Exemplifies The Plight Of The Cynic.

One time I found this English guy on the side of the road in Cambodia without a shirt or shoes. He’d been knocked out by a tuk tuk driver the night before and had his wallet stolen – didn’t even know where his room was.

He looked a bit nuts at first, but I pulled over and talked to him. I picked him up on my motorbike and told him I’d help him figure out where his hotel was. On the way, I pulled into one of my regular restaurants.

“My money’s all gone,” he said.

“Don’t worry about it. Breakfast is on me – you need food.”

And I shit you not, he broke down in tears.

A grown man, the owner of a concrete business back in the UK, just sitting there crying in front of me in the middle of this restaurant.

“Who the fuck are you?” he says. “I don’t know anyone who would do all this. Nobody does this kind of thing.”

Uh, Yeah, Buddy, Actually, They Do…

Why doesn’t he know people who would do that?

I know a lot that would.

I’ll tell you why. Because he wouldn’t do it, that’s why.

Your illusions become your reality.

And when you close yourself off to the world and always seek a result from every interaction, well, that’s what you see all around you (like this depressed guy talking about how people only open him if they want to sell something.)

It took us half the day to find his place. He was staying in a 5-star hotel. He offered me money. He told me to go get my girlfriend and come back later for dinner on him.

I didn’t go back because I didn’t want it to become about the result…

I would never want it to become about the result.

I just told him to repay the favor to a stranger in the future. And if he truly does, how do you think it will affect the way he sees others?

If You Lived Out Some Real-World Version of the movie “Pay it Forward,” How Would it Affect Your Reality?

I see small kindnesses everywhere.

Isn’t the way it affects my vision of the world enough?

I could never recall all the random strangers who’ve helped me or opened their doors to me, often with no hope of anything in return and often even refusing “repayment.”

Why is that?

Part of me believes it’s because your illusions become your reality.

Part of me believes I see it and receive it because I deserve it, and maybe that’s a farfetched, even narcissistic thought.

But who cares? It’s not harming anyone to think that.

It’s only helping me – it’s only helping others. I earn it every day in every way I can think of, and it’s become a part of my personality and the vibe I give off, so mabe I deserve to be deluded.

I’ve Been Here Where I’m At Now For a Month – Manila, The Philippines.

I walk into the coffee shop and everyone knows my name and my order.

I walk into the local karaoke bar and the local pub and everyone knows my name and my order and the songs I want to sing.

I go the local market to eat and several shopkeepers come up to say hi to me or shake my hand.

The guy in the hotel said to me today, “How are you, Sir?” When I said “good,” he replied, “It seems you’re always feeling good, Sir.” Because I constantly project goodwill towards him, even when my day isn’t going as planned. I walk in and it gets better just by treating someone like a person when I don’t have to. In fact, unlike most foreigners, I call him “sir” back.

I was up in this swanky rooftop club for the second time recently and the bartenders already remembered my name and were giving me Belgian ales free of charge and then asked me if I wanted some cocktails. This is a place full of white foreigners just like me (most with a lot more money), so what makes them remember me so fast?

A moment later I met a French guy who started ranting to me about how the bartender was a snake and would always try to overcharge – the very same guy who’d been feeding me free booze all night. And what’s worse is I suspect the Frenchman was reading an honest mistake as an attempt to scam him…

Anyone you talk to, even other Africans, will rant to you about how Nigerians are the scum of the Earth. “Don’t even talk to them,” they’ll say.

The Nigerians I’ve met have been nothing but grand.

They picked me up in their SUVs in Phnom Penh and took me all over the city and paid for everything. They’d buy high-end bottles of whiskey all night and refuse my contribution (in fact, I can’t ever recall having a drink with a Nigerian that didn’t insist to buy the first round).

One guy wanted to fly me with him to Nigeria to show me what his country was really like. I’ve been so drunk with them late at night I couldn’t see straight or even figure out where I was, and they rolled me into a cab and sent me back to my hotel.

I could go on with anecdotes all day…

Why Do I Get These Reactions From People?

Is it really possible for you or is it because I have good social skills already?

I’m sure that’s part of it.

But how can you establish your own without building the experiences first? By starting at the bottom and working your way up.

And how can you desire it if you can’t even see the good in people?

I think it happens because this has been my go-to behavior and thought process for so long that it has become my reality. It’s who I am.

And when you reach out to people constantly and engage with people constantly, not because you want to get something from them but because you’ve truly convinced yourself that it makes the world a better place…

…Well, How Can That Part Of Your Very Personality Not Eventually Draw People To You?

How can people not get a kick out of interacting with you?

And not want to be around you and part of your world?

People are a lot better at instinctually reading you than you could possibly think.

So, sure, you can build more grounded social networks eventually. Especially if you stay in one place and keep doing this instead of constantly being on the move like I am.

But what I’m talking about is the difference between reaching out to people because you need the attention…

…Or reaching out to people because you suspect they might be the ones who need it.

Eventually Someone Has to Do the Reaching…

Over the years I’ve noticed that people often wear the disinterested look on their face as a mask. It’s like they’re just trying convince themselves they don’t need anyone else (sound familiar?).

Often, these people are dying for interaction.

Go into a bar at Happy Hour and you’ll often find a guy sitting there all by himself. Big fella with a huge beer gut. Blue collar look about him. Grumpy and closed off.

You’re both sitting there and his eyes are glued to the TV and neither of you cares what’s on there, do you?

You’re just fixing your eyes there because there’s nowhere else to fix them.

And the last thing you want to do is bug him or make yourself so vulnerable to reach out…

After All, You Can’t Afford To Show Weakness To A Guy Like This…

He might even purposely avoid looking at you.

Or if you say hi, he’ll nod grudgingly and go back to the TV.

But stop for a second…if this guy is so resistant to human interaction, what the fuck is he doing at a bar in the early evening when he could be sitting on his couch in front of the TV, alone, drinking the same beer and paying a lot less?

Clearly he’s hungry for human interaction.

And clearly so are you.

Yet you sit there trying not to look at each other and both pretending you don’t give a shit.

Over Time I Started Making It A Point To Break The Ice With These Guys.

Sometimes it takes a couple tries, but you say something about whatever you both don’t give a shit about on TV.

Or you get right to the point and ask him where he’s from or how his day is going.

It’s funny because they’ll always act a bit caught off guard at first. Or act grumpy and dismissive.

It’s a defense.

But you do it again and you can see him come alive, how suddenly the wall comes tumbling down and his entire expression changes. And suddenly he’s gabbing with you, and you’re making a new friend.

And you know what?

These manly, closed off, good ole’ boys often turn out to be the most generous, accommodating people on Earth…

I’ve Seen This Phenomenon All Over The World.

People act like they don’t care, but they’re protecting themselves.

When I walk through the backstreets of Cambodia or Thailand, or even in Western Europe or wherever, certain people do their best to ignore me a lot of the time. They’ll often avoid your eyes and maybe even have their scowl on their face, as if trying to repel you.

And it would be so easy to think, “Ah they must hate foreigners.” I’ve thought it often myself.

But I’ve made it a game to look right at them and smile and say, “How are you?” Preferably in their own language.

Or even just smile that big warm, genuine, welcoming smile. The game is “Can I Crack Through?”

And I tell you 8 times out of 10 their face explodes into a smile back.

And I find it was all a defense mechanism.

And the crabby old grandma running the family restaurant next to your hotel, the one who was always scowling at you, is eventually bringing you plates of fruit to snack on whenever you come in to eat and trying to marry you off to her grand-daughters.

Even Now Sometimes They Fool Me.

I was in this cheap little garage gym yesterday, and I’d never seen a white guy in there before. And this skinny English guy was doing pull-ups. As he walked past me, I said, “Hey, how’s it going, Man?”

And he had an angry look on his face and turned away and walked outside for a break between his sets.

Even with all the times I’ve seen guys do this, I couldn’t help but be a little offended. I said outloud, “Okaaay guy.” Hey, I’m only human, and inside I’m thinking, “Jesus, some of these fucking foreigners acting like you’re stepping on their turf because they’re not the only white face in the room.”

You know what? Five minutes later the guy had regrouped, and he came back in and you could see he made it a point to wander my way and rebreak the ice with me, and next thing you know we were having a conversation.

Silly me.

He was apologizing without apologizing. The wall was down.

People Want Interaction; They Just Have Their Guard Up.

And part of me actually believes that the guy will be a little more open to other people next time.

What’s more is I’ll probably see him in there again, and who knows what kind of connection he could turn into.

What’s better, though, is the presence you build there in the room over time. All the Filipinos working out in there and all the staff already know my name and are all constantly talking with me whenever I come in for the simple reason that I carry myself like this every single time I walk in. They give me foods to try, they invite me to parties. I constantly have to break off conversations just to do my sets.

Why?

Because this who I am and they know that.

So whether the interaction turns into anything directly tangible for me, the fact that THIS IS WHO I AM CONSTANTLY pays dividends you couldn’t put a price tag on. And, like anything, over time that interest compounds.

This One Girl I’m Seeing Now Is A Real Cynic.

I’m not much for cynics, especially the idea of dating cynical girls. Cynics are poisonous thinkers, and they can poison you.

But I can see it’s a mask, and I don’t take it all that seriously. Not to mention that, hell, if I was a Southeast Asian gal dealing with a semi-young, hot-blooded white male on her home turf, I’d start off a bit cynical too…

She’s always dogging on other Filipinas doing “sweet things” – like bringing food for guys they just met or otherwise buttering them up. She’s a tough nut to crack.

“Being sweet is bullshit,” she says. “It’s not real.”

In the case of poorer Filipinas trying to land a guy to take care of them, I suppose this is true. They give to get. She can afford to frown on it because she’s got plenty of money.

But I can see one of the reasons this girl is attracted to me is because of the way I can walk into a room and interact with every person there. That within thirty minutes of entering the club I’ve spoken with just about everyone in my vicinity instead of putting on airs.

So one night she gave me the “sweet is bullshit” line when I reprimanded her about bratty tough-girl behavior.

I Got Real for a Second.

Leaned in with my hand on her shoulder, looked her in the eyes, and said, “Let me ask you something. When you see me being so friendly and open with everyone, do you think that’s really who I am? Or do you think that’s bullshit?”

She got a little starry-eyed as she explored my gaze.

Trying to determine if her own gut could be trusted.

“No,” she said, finally. “I really don’t.”

“So being sweet isn’t bullshit, is it? Not always. Some people are just that way. And by cutting yourself off from that, you only hurt yourself.”

You could almost see her muscles relax…

The wall came down a little bit further…

And I Think She Saw In That Moment It Was Guardedness That Was Bullshit Rather Than The “Sweetness.”

I reach out to people because that’s who I want to be, not because I want something from them.

Do I want to have sex with this girl?

Of course I do, but that’s not the only reason I look her directly in her eyes and get real with her.

Do I want people to like me?

Of course I do, but that’s not the only reason I compliment them or do them favors.

Do I want people to do nice things for me or to introduce me to their cool friends?

Of course I do, but that’s not the only reason I ask them their name, where they’re from, and what it’s like being them…

I reach out to people because, whether someone else calls it horseshit or not…

I’ve Convinced Myself This Behavior Makes Life A Little Bit Brighter…

So, give sincere compliments.

Make people laugh.

Make the bubble of world just around you a slightly better place…

And even if it doesn’t pay off in the beginning, you’ll feel better.

You’ll be less depressed. And so will those who come into contact with you.

You’ll be less poisoned by cynicism.

And you’ll have a lot more faith in humanity because, well…

All you have to do to see that there’s still good in people…is look inside of yourself…

And what better result could you ask for than that?

This guy has one of the best outlooks, and I'm frankly envious of the way he sees things obviously leads to him having a more fulfilling life. I'm starting to come around to the idea that being cynical is, well, a path to misery and unfulfillment.

I would very much like to hear the opinions of other men on RVF about this topic. Are you a cynic? An optimist? How did you come to your conclusions, and what has been the result? If you're a former cynic, how did you evolve past that mindset?