Newsletter from Jay Wilcox - October 2023: On Doubling Down

"A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."

- Oscar Wilde

Good morning/afternoon/evening,

I'm terrified of gambling--that sort of terror where it's hard to look away, and I wind up absorbed in stories of people losing everything. I read recently about the so-called Martingale system for roulette, a strategy in which one doubles down immediately after a loss, betting twice as much and then twice as much again after each defeat. If you're on red, stay on red. Never change. After all, if you finally win, you'll get your money back and then some, right?

I see cynicism as a similar sort of doubling down. I hate feeling like a loser--like someone who could be taken advantage of or tricked. Reading the news, one gets the sense that people are inherently bad and greedy and duplicitous, that they've always been this way, and that if the world never changes, why should I? Why would I alter my betting style if it's kept me alive thus far?

I'm not writing this to promote optimism. Don't get your hopes up.

However, I do want to examine cynicism's fruits. If you're like me, your brain seeks order from chaos, predictable patterns that allow it to deprioritize certain questions. Why did this guy cut me off in traffic? Because he's an idiot! That is a behavior that goes in the idiot box! There are indeed such boxes in my brain, and it's hard to think outside of them when observing strangers. We don't have time to entertain every individual's unique and beautiful motivations.

That said, cynicism blooms where it's planted. I've seen documentaries on authoritarian leaders and wondered how so many people could fall in line behind an autocrat, and with age I've come to believe it's because such adherents simply don't believe humanity can ever do better. We need a Big Strong Man™ to rein us in. We hate feeling like losers and gravitate to those that promise a win--some grand, final, scorched-earth triumph over those who might play us for suckers. After all, if humans are inherently no good, why the heck should we let them vote?

It's cool to be a bit cynical sometimes. I get it. Still, consider the ruthless metastasis of racism and sexism and the fact that maybe cynicism is not a seed but rather soil--a rich compost of our response to uncertainty. Not every cynic is racist. I'd wager every racist person is fairly cynical. We need categories, pots for all this dirt, but if one doesn't routinely interrogate their brain's classification heuristics, they risk becoming someone they never wanted to be. Is it fun to have enemies everywhere? Is it healthy to live as a knife in the dark?

If any of this is construed as "Why can't we all just get along?" then I haven't articulated it well enough. There's a difference between abject naivete and mindfulness, and perhaps such distinction is the work of a lifetime.

I hope you've been well. Our daughter has started responding to sound, so Hannah and I have been singing very optimistic songs to her every night*.

Infinite Regards,
Jay

*She seems to like Bill Withers' "Lean on Me."