Rick's November Tirade
How I Became a Cynic
I don't know about you, but I wasn't born cynical. Few of us are.
In fact, my relatives and more venerable friends will tell you that
I dreamed away my youth in a state of idyllic ease and contentment.
I was convinced I lived in the best of all possible worlds, which
for me was a leafy, sun-dappled, middle-class corner of suburban New
Jersey. I liked my parents, my neighbors, my neighbors' dogs -- even
my schoolteachers. In short, I was impossibly happy.
So how did I end up writing The Cynic's Dictionary? What
malevolent imp yanked the rug out from under the merry young
idealist? What unseen gravity pulled him into the orbit of those
mischievous malcontents known as CYNICS?
I can't give you the exact date and time, but when it happened it
happened fast. I had just graduated from a respectable university
with a degree in history. I had taken my education seriously enough
to graduate with honors. I knew all the monarchs of England in order
from Egbert to Elizabeth II. I could tell you about the cause and
outcome of the Third Mithridatic War. I could... well, you get the
picture. There was absolutely no doubt in my green and buoyant mind
that the world would grant me a place of honor. I was poised to make
my entrance.
I date my downfall to the moment I opened the want ads in search
of my first job. Suddenly my place in the world was revealed to me
in one ego-crumpling phrase: "Coll Grad Typist, 7K." One
phrase, repeated over and over again, irritatingly, mockingly,
diabolically, until the point was driven home: in the eyes of
society, I was worth approximately as much as a shoestore clerk --
at a really cheap shoestore.
In The Cynic's Dictionary I define a cynic as "an idealist
whose rose-colored glasses have been removed, snapped in two and
stomped into the ground, immediately improving his vision." The
day I opened those want ads was the day I had my glasses snapped.
What galled me even more as I studied the want ads (and believe
me, I became an authority on the subject) was that any job with a
whiff of nobility automatically paid less than one that called upon
our crasser instincts. Thus an assistant editor of a literary
magazine was forever doomed to be outearned by an assistant buyer of
ladies' undergarments. Society was rewarding those folks who had
been callous enough -- or shrewd enough -- to resist the
enchantments of art and philosophy.
My early career track reads like a how-to manual for cynics. I
entered the business world as a $7500-a-year assistant editor of
Rubber Age, which, despite its faintly amusing title, was actually a
deadly earnest trade publication for people in the rubber industry.
From there I was boosted to associate editor of Plants, Sites &
Parks -- industrial parks, not Yosemite, Hyde or Central. My final
coup was promotion to managing editor of Container News, which made
the first two jobs seem like MTV by comparison.
You might be wondering, what is there about containers that could
possibly qualify as NEWS? My point exactly: I could see no point to
it. I think Embalmer's Monthly would have been an improvement. I was
25 and seriously jaded.
Luckily the nephew of the company president coveted my job, and I
smiled when they handed it to him a few months later. I was out of
there -- and good riddance, too. Free at last, free at last!
Back home with my parents, I delved into my books, took long
walks in the woods, and spent a month crafting an essay on the
plight of the liberal arts graduate. National Review accepted it
after some shameless hectoring on my part, and paid me $75. At that
rate I could earn up to $900 a year as a writer.
But I had even more ambitious plans. I had always wanted to work
at Time-Life Books, either as a staff writer or a series planner.
So I concocted a detailed prospectus for a series on "The Great
Writers" and mailed it to them. They were impressed but sent
regrets -- they had already tested and rejected a similar series.
However, they'd gladly hire me as a staff writer -- at more than
twice my previous salary!
Naturally I was thrilled. Then they told me I'd be working on the
Plumbing volume in their vast Home Repair and Improvement series. My
first assignment: to prepare a two-page spread, with diagrams, on
the art of installing a new toilet. You could say it went down
the drain from there. Somehow I couldn't develop the knack of
writing gracefully about floor flanges and soil stacks. When the
company moved to the Confederacy a few months later, they didn't
take me along for the ride.
I could go on, but I won't bore you with the dismal details. I've
been steadily employed at the same writing job for over ten years
now... I've won a handful of advertising awards... I even make a
fair amount of money for what I do. But I had to write The Cynic's
Dictionary to keep my mind and spirit from withering on the job.
I make my living in the business world, but my soul will never be
completely at ease there. I must be constituted differently on a
genetic level from your average MBA, who seems to thrive in an
environment I consider semi-lethal -- the way certain strains of
bacteria thrive on antibiotics. To anyone with a mildly vigorous
imagination, the modern corporation must seem a pale imitation of
life... a mundane yet strangely artificial world without colorful
streets to ramble or green woods to roam... without passionate
exchanges of deeply held ideas...without romance or gaiety or great
books or history or dogs or children.
And what about the petty rivalries and sneaky intrigues, the
subtle brainwashing and not-so-subtle backstabbing, the
self-important corporate jargon, the self-appointed hall monitors,
the arbitrary goals and deadlines, the ever-lengthening hours, the
havoc wreaked on mind and body... the soul-numbing pointlessness of
all this BUSINESS!
On top of that, try finding a decent imported beer in the company
cafeteria.
Still, there are those who love the corporation... who take to it
as naturally as a cat to a windowsill. I can't resent them for
following their bliss. But it's not my bliss, and I suspect it's not
yours either.
