Two Cynics Walk into a Bar. . .

Matt was a senior in high school, with far more educational know-how tucked inside his school-issue button down than I possessed in all ten of my second-year-teacher digits. But that doesn't mean I was blind to the facts. Not all of them, anyway.

Also tucked inside this lanky, tightly-wound smart guy, though--bubbling just under the surface, like something you'd find in a Hawaiian volcano park--was enough cynicism to drown a whole town of rats. And, even though I had yet to make it even twice around the "teacher" block, I knew enough to realize that this was no way for a 17 year old to live.

That's when I called in the big guns. Because it was a private school, though, constantly strapped for funds, it is possible that an outsider would not recognize my friend Jim as "big guns" stuff. He is not much taller than me and, I suspect, probably weighs in less than me, as well. Yet, still, we manage to be good friends.

Jim was the school's sole custodian, responsible not only for keeping the place neat, tidy and well functioning, but also--as a kind of signing bonus for the place--the go-to guy for all things magical and positive. He was, without doubt, one of the best parts of that school. Which is why I put him in contact with Matt.

Mostly, I wanted Matt to meet an adult who was completely comfortable in his own skin, someone who could possess both encyclopedic knowledge and child-like wonder. (You can see why I refer to Jim as "big guns.") Jim has a palliative, healing way about him, one delivered not in hushed tones but, rather, in skin-stretching smiles and infectious, well-timed guffaws.

By the time Matt graduated from high school, he had grown fond of Jim and found himself a role model for a different way to live.

Ah, to have a dozen Jims at my disposal.

Some days, I am convinced that cynicism is the 21st-century's version of the black plague, sweeping through and wiping out entire communities with nary a concern about the human waste it leaves in its wake. Unlike the plague, though, cynicism has cleverly cloaked itself in desirable threads, enabling it to lure folks towards it rather than frighten away its future victims. People actually seek it out, as a lifestyle, a label of "cool" to apply to their lapels.

In these circles (circles that tend to all smell the same, for cynics are like in-bred dogs, lacking both the imagination and the nose for those who differ from them), laughter is both costly and rare, and the air is thin and disturbing. It is here, among the cynics, where Dante surely must have resided, penning his phrase "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here." They simply assumed he was talking about hell.

I, for one, though, will continue to don my "optimist's" garb each morning, not naive to the hardships of this world so much as rebellious against the black tide that threatens to take away joy itself.

As for those who continue to snarl their lips, pass their harsh judgments and take under their wings those who are wavering, I have some advice, not that they'll take it, of course.

"Abandon hope, all ye who mentor here."