It’s natural to think of cynicism compared to optimism, like we do with other opposites: dark and light, sorrow and joy, the Kansas City Chiefs and the Denver Broncos. (Monday night was rough for us Broncos fans.) Anyway, I mention opposites-thinking because it implies that the cost of a thing is its opposite. Cynicism grows, we think, at the expense of optimism.
But the cost of cynicism isn’t its opposite. A cynic doesn’t lose optimism; they just don’t have it. Optimism wasn’t the price paid for a cynical view of things. The cynic loses something else, paying out for a thing much dearer than a sunny outlook.
The cost of cynicism is curiosity. You’ve never met a curious cynic. A cynic has nothing to learn, no new thing to explore or understand. All is understood and known for the person who squints at everything. Cynicism isn’t so much closing the mind as it is filling the mind with surly conclusions that take up every inch as they body check and scowl at any new thought that might want to enter.
Think of how much we don’t know and all there is to learn. It boggles and energizes the willing. What an expensive price to pay to be a cynic.