I like the older definition, the one that equates cynics to people living like dogs, closer to nature, farther from society. If people were more like dogs we'd be fine. Dogs love unconditionally and sort themselves out in packs instinctively. Yes there are alphas and omegas but they have specific roles--no real social hierarchy like humans tend to create.

Much of the hype about positivity is a reaction to the Calvinist attitudes of the 1800s that produced an epic of 'invalidism' (a.k.a. depression, although that word hadn't been introduced yet).

Barbara Erhenreich's book "Bright Sided" gives a terrific history of how this cheer-as-medicine was eventually sold to corporate America and how it directly contributed to our financial downfall by separating right action from outcomes at the very top of corporate organizations. Prominent CEOs were attending workshops in the 90s that taught that attitude was everything, performance irrelevant. Now look where we are.

Anyone who has ever worked for a huge corporation knows that you are required to be cheerful no matter what. It becomes delusional. It's like entering a parallel reality where everything is inside out and nothing means what you think it means. For instance, when I worked for a huge regional bank back in 2007 and started getting daily memos about how great the bank was doing, I said, "Oh-oh. The bank's going down." A year later it did. That's what happens when positivity is legislated--no accountability and everything must be translated. Official language turns Orwellian.

What we need is balance. I try to see the world for what it is but detach myself from it. After all, it will do what it does, regardless of how I feel about it. In front of my nose though, my own life is happening.

Don't want to miss THAT.