Writing from a Place of Skepticism versus Cynicism

[This was first published on my LinkedIn account in 2017. I have decided to publish it as is here. The core themes are just as true today. Perhaps even more so. I have also kept in a reference to Neil Gaiman, because the example is instructive.]

 

In September 2014, I was having lunch with two of my longtime writing students. Born 5 days apart, 78 years ago, they are both from coal mining families in West Virginia. Both are veterans. Both raised families and worked hard in a variety of careers before retiring and devoting a good part of their newfound “free time” to writing. They met for the first time in a writing class at a community college I was teaching 7 years ago.

In the time between the 8-week writing courses I would offer several times a year, we would meet informally once a month to talk about writing and life in general over lunch. I have always admired these men—with whom I still keep in touch—because they have never stopped questioning life and their place in it. As the years passed, I watched with a teacher’s pride as they increased their publication credits and became able practitioners of their craft in short story, playwriting, and memoir.

As we mined the rich story-fields of life that day—modern healthcare and the challenges of longevity versus quality of life; the shrinking and in many ways targeted middle class/small business owner/entrepreneur; and the state of government "leadership," one of them commented that as he had lived his life, he had moved from Skepticism to Cynicism (Skepticism being Healthy Questioning versus the inherent Immovable Distrust that is the hallmark of Cynicism).

Although 30 years younger, I too had found myself making that same move on the continuum of engagement with these socioeconomic and political aspects of our lives.

My Skepticism started early, as a Catholic school student of 10 years old asking a priest to reconcile for me Adam and Eve versus the Dinosaurs.

His response—"It's a matter of faith, my son"—coming from the dark beyond the screen of the confessional, didn't really do it for me. My Skepticism badge was firmly pinned upon my collar from that day forth and it stayed there all through school and the first chapter of my adult life.

It was during the previous decade—but mainly the 18 months prior to that particular lunch meeting—as I found those aforementioned story-fields becoming mine-fields in my own personal narrative, that I moved to Cynicism.

After that September 2014 discussion I pondered for many days before writing the first version of this essay, which asked: Can we be effective writers/storytellers/communicators coming from a place of Cynicism?

I thought then and still think that we can't. I think Cynicism leads to Dogmatic, Didactic/Agenda-laden, and "because I said so" writing. I think it disallows Possibility and curtails real Dialogue. And in my 19 years of writing and performing Social Justice theatre and facilitating theatre-based interactive workshops for young audiences, I have avoided those approaches like the plague.

Characters—well-rounded and complex, with compelling arcs—and a complete character continuum that represents all aspects of the themes being presented in a particular story… these are the life-blood of the effective writer/storyteller/communicator.

So I abandoned my Cynicism and moved back to Skepticism, in my writing and my life. It’s made a considerable difference.

Three years later, I think it’s important to visit this subject again. In the age of an unprecedented level of reactionary politics, attempts to obliterate uncomfortable history rather than using its symbols and monuments as an entry point to dialogue so we can learn from it, and an age of click-baiting and fake news, it is easy to retreat into Cynicism. To make the decision to, as Fox Mulder believed on X-Files, “trust no one” (a maxim echoed just last night in a trailer for a new Gerard Butler film). Perhaps, were I not a storyteller, I would embrace that route, kill my Facebook and other social media presences, and retreat into books and films that reinforce my feeling that the best days of humanity are behind us. My kids are grown, my resume is something of which I can be proud, and many of my former students and mentees are doing great things in the world. This would be a good time to put on my softest cardigan, light a comforting pipe, and embrace fully the Cynicism that I have battled most of my life.

Instead, I am making a renewed commitment to the Healthy Questioning that is Skepticism. Because nothing is black and white. Complexity is on its deathbed, and we need to revive it. It’s okay to Not Be Sure. To agree with someone in one sense and disagree with them in another. Because no one is Only One Thing. In the world of storytelling, that is bad writing. It is uni-dimensionality and human beings are infinitely dimensional. Cynicism discounts the Backstory. Skepticism seeks it out. “What makes this person act this way? Say these things? Where are they coming from in their life that brought them to this place?”

Perhaps the zeitgeist we should be most Skeptical of is our own. Storytelling invites this approach. I was recently reading an interview Neil Gaiman did some years ago with Stephen King, and they both agreed that they write because they are curious about something. It is why Gaiman wrote American Gods. He was trying to figure out America, where he had lived for ten years. Ken Follett said something similar about why he writes in a lecture he gave on the history of the thriller. Nothing is thrilling about Cynicism. So I think all three must be talking about their curiosity in terms of Skepticism.

So the next time you feel your bile rising as you scroll through your social media newsfeeds, ask yourself where you’re coming from: is it a place of Healthy Questioning (Skepticism) or Immovable Distrust (Cynicism)? If you are a writer, or creative of any kind, this question becomes even more important.

Because the rich condition of engaging with Complexity that allows us to grow, change, and improve is rarely an option for those who believe they have nothing to learn, everything is a Lie, and nothing will ever get better again.