Confession of a Cynic:
I'm trying to get back into the habit of writing for myself and not only for school assignments. In my search for motivation, I found a prompt about cynicism- having someone cynical in your life, how does that expericance make you feel, etc and I thought "I AM the cynic in my life!"
The idea was to write a journal type entry about how expericancing cynicism effects your life and it dawns on me that being a cynic is why I am stuck at not writing. Everytime I even think of writing, I "doubt" myself out of any and all ideas. "Nope, that's been done," "no one wants to hear about that," or my biggest enemy, the most evil, most convincing villian to my creativity- "you don't have anything to offer. Who wants to hear from you?"
That is worse than cynicism, it's self-destructive behavior. I would not allow anyone to treat me like this yet I constantly find myself putting myself down. I think I am fairly intelligent and yet... I seem to have lost my ability to write it out, express myself unless I have a specific, non-emotional reason to do so. I have completed my Bachelor's in English and am about to embark upon the Master's program and yet I cannot say I have a voice.
Where did that voice go?
Women are slammed with images telling us how to look, act, BE and I understand this. I understand the mass marketing of image and the untruths in those images and yet... I believe them at some level. If I say I am too fat, there are many who would say "oh no, you are beautiful the way you are. Embrace yourself." That is a lovely idea until a plus sized women goes shopping. It's hard to be beautiful when all the clothing options are moomoos and all the "cute" or trendy clothing stops at a size 12. If I say I am happy being the age I am, that is a great mantra until I walk through store isles and am bombarded by row upon row of anti-aging creams. Aging is something to be fought against and spend mass quantitites of money and time fighting.
Being a woman is supposed to hold power and is something to be proud of but... it's not. Being a woman is nothing but a huge struggle. It is hard to not be cyncial when the world around me tells me I am not enough. You hear somethng enough, you begin to believe it.
