Cynicism

Okay, I don't want to come across overly preaching and joyous, but this is something I really need to get off my chest. It's rather similar to the first post I made this year, though with a subtly different focus. I must stress that I'm not one of these naïvely optimistic types who think that everything in the world is good. I consider myself somewhat cynical insofar as I won't take "facts" given to me at face value but rather look for corroborative evidence, or at very least think for myself about how likely it is to be true. But it seems to me that it's become cool to be cynical about everything, to an excessive extent. To doubt has become the norm; while I am a firm believer that questioning things is extremely important, I also believe that giving people the benefit of the doubt (where there's no evidence to support or deny the case in point) is simply a healthy thing to do - and above that, the sort of thing that a nice person should do. And above all else, I believe that being nice is important and something more people should try.

So I think there is a danger that all too many people are at risk of falling into - that is, to disbelieve anything because it goes against your intuition or worse, your preconceptions. To question is healthy, but you must leave yourself open minded enough to accept good, logical arguments that support ideas that might not occur to you. Not to do so is just to be bloody-minded.

Growing old

I'm getting old. Now, I know a lot of people will be foaming at the mouth at reading this yelling "You're not old! Now stop whinging and go find me my cane!" or something like that. But it's true, I am definitely getting old. I've come to this conclusion after two observations made in the last month or so:

1. When it snowed, my reaction upon waking and seeing the blanket of white wasn't "Yay! Snow!", but rather "Ohhhh, I'm going to have to walk to the lab."
2. The urge to lick the spoon when baking no longer grips me, even when baking with chocolate.
   

Ah well, it had to happen sometime...