Venus said: "I don't want to drop my world view altoghter. I am not a pessimist, I am just well informed optimist."

I agree! With the proviso that a "well-informed optimist" must be a cynic, at least in part.

As we've seen on this thread, cynicism is many things to many people, with all kinds of things that can be added to it or subtracted from it, with limitations on its extent in any direction, and with direct relations to all kinds of other stances that can be taken vis-a-vis the world and its inhabitants.

Cynicism doesn't have to be a suit of armor that you put on in the morning and take off before going to bed. In my experience it's a bandaid that you put on a cut. You don't cover yourself in bandaids. There's no reason to be cynical if particular people/groups/interests/places/things haven't given you real reason to be so. Use it where it's appropriate!

There are places where it's not, like right here on PC. In a sense, when joining PC we each take an implied pledge of allegiance to the effect that we bind ourselves to take others as they present themselves, as they wish to be encountered, unless they give us obvious and continued reason not to do so. The basic agreement here to offer help and comfort in our various different ways isn't compatible with a generalized cynicism. But particular individuals (very few indeed) do seem to justify such an approach.

For many people, cynicism is taken automatically to include a touch of bitterness, but this need not be the case. Bitterness is appropriate only where there is betrayal of a specific, express trust: your husband, your wife, your doctor, your parents, whatever. It is indeed possible to have cynicism without bitterness, unless you're an adolescent emerging from a childhood in which you were brainwashed into believing that the world is perfect as it is. Young people with that background are justified in feeling bitter about the whole project.

So. I think Venus would agree that a philosophy of limited cynicism is the best. Cynicism where justified by fact and experience. Not cynicism applied with a broad brush across the board. (Except, of course, with regard to the finance industry.)

Happy trails to you!