If ever there is a Cynics/Nihilists Anonymous, this is my introductory speech...
"I am Ian Joseph Riñon, and I am a cynic and a nihilist."
I am Ian Joseph Riñon, and I am a cynic and a nihilist.
Like so many of you, I have always been a dreamer, similar to the two Josephs in the Bible — the Son of Jacob in the Old Testament and the Son of David in the New. People who surrounded my family said I have great potential when it comes to talent, skill, and intellect. To this day, I am struggling to process what they meant given my personal experiences.
Being the firstborn son of three children, the burden was immense from the get-go, and I had no idea what it was to lead my brother who followed me and a sister who is the youngest among us. Worse still, my father’s work as a seafarer was a sacrificial one development-wise as he was forced to miss out on several of our milestones in school.
Because of this, I have been struggling to look for a father-figure to look up to, or even a mentor I can consult. The fact that I was bullied at school to the point of me making an attempt to erase myself from this plane of existence unfortunately made it worse as it puts a chip on my shoulder.
As I progressed through university, I was still finding myself when some of my peers had already done so. The fact that I came from a lower middle class background (or maybe just above the poverty line, I don’t know) did not help as I was not able to purchase equipment I would need to get me going for our academic requirements, since the programme I was enrolled in was supposed to propel me towards a career in the media industry.
Having a shitty string of jobs also destroyed my innocence. While some of the jobs I had were desired, all of it did not give back, or have pretentiously done so in the spirit of giving every Christmas.
And the recent pandemic made it difficult for me as well since my dad effectively retired in 2018 and both of my siblings are struggling with their own jobs (and lives) as well.
There was a point that I found it meaningless to go to church on Sundays despite the fact the sermons were good and the liturgies half-decent. “What’s the point when all of us sinned against God?” I sarcastically thought at the time. “The institutions that support the Church, and all other adjacent ones, have also been unsupportive to me and other well-meaning people professionally when I have pitched myself to them, so what’s the point of prayer?”
Looking back, I was a fool.
Just after Easter this year, the company I was formerly involved with gaslit me by saying I plagiarised when the process of checking for originality of written works was flawed in the first place. A few months later, that company folded in the stupidest way possible, causing them to lay off some of its staff (if not all of them), myself included.
To put the long story short, I was prepared to fight tooth-and-nail in court to assert what I think is right in the rule of law, even to the point of publicising it through the contacts of my colleagues who saved my ass and invited me to their own media startup. But then again, if I did that, it might only be a paper victory and my reputation as a no-holds-barred, no-nonsense, no-fun-allowed cynic might only mean one thing: that I am a whiny and undesirable piece of shit to any workplace.
And as I remain technically jobless and gig-dependent despite my involvement with the media startup I am attached to, it did present an opportunity to reflect on my life and what I should do. For starters, I did reflect that I am the problem and I should do something about it.
The question now is where to start.
It all began in late 2023 when I realised I should make peace with my past and swallow my pride as much as possible now that I am now in my 30s and still achieved nothing. It was a hard and heavy pill, indeed, but it made sense.
An old friend recently published a book about spiritual manhood, and honestly, I shared his sentiment that I should have that kind of literature when I was in my 20s. After reading that, I was compelled, based on the author’s recommendation, to get Jordan Peterson’s book “12 Rules for Life,” which I just finished as I was writing this.
In between phases of me reading Peterson’s book, I reflected on my own life and realised there is a long way to go now that I knew his musings about Order and Chaos, of Being and the King of the Damned, hit accurately in my perspective.
As for my father: I know he is not a perfect father, and I criticise his thoughts on money and faith, but I cannot blame him for being cynical with life in his old age as he has his own chip on his shoulder. In fact, I have to admit being cynical was the one thing that stuck to me most and not the good things he has to impart in us. If any, perhaps it was the love he had for his wife, my mother, which I still admire as they are still having fun with each other despite — or perhaps because of — their differences.
Another thing I can say is something he has taught me, even indirectly, is the importance and significance of responsibility, that it is a burden worth carrying, a cross worth bearing. This is what Peterson wanted to point out in his bestseller.
It also reminded me that the two Josephs — the Son of Jacob and the Son of David — faced setbacks but remained faithful to their respective purposes in their own Biblical stories. The former was thrown into a pit by his brothers and sold into slavery in Egypt but ended up saving those same brothers from famine as governor of Egypt. The latter was the pretender to the Davidic throne and was about to be betrothed to the most beautiful woman to have ever lived when she became pregnant with the Messiah, yet he accepted that Child as his own, knowing all too well that He will be the greatest of all Davidic kings.
If they who were set by adversity succeeded by finding meaning to their lives — and in our modern language, nailed it through divine help — what more for me, a man who share their name, who seeks to, as Peterson said in Rule 7, “Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)”?
Either way, I am on my way to recovery.
I intend for this piece to be the first of two articles pertaining to my recovery from cynicism, with the second one about my formal review of, and a reflection on, Dr. Peterson’s book in development.
What is exciting about this is that I now have the confidence to tell my story and, perhaps, write my own book about this journey of mine from cynicism to courage, from indifference to intrepidity.
Watch this space.