Hope for Cynics, Holding on to Jane Goodall's Spirit...and Nature's Quiet Insistence on Life
- drjunedarling1
- Oct 4
- 7 min read
Todays’ young people—everywhere I go—they’re so excited and empowered. We’re listening to their voices. That gives us a reason to hope. Jane Goodall
Jane Goodall died this week. I'm listening to some of her interviews and some of the inspiring Instagram posts some have made. Her strong belief in the kindness and goodness - her HOPE is a legacy I want to keep alive.
I dug out an earlier post I had written about hope which I'm sharing pieces of below and adding to it some of Goodall's spirited and specific reasons for hope.
Last evening one of my sons sent me a text with a link to a podcast. I recognized that the podcast was an interview with Jamil Zaki. As I mentioned to my son, I happened to be reading his latest book, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness. I am familiar with Zaki, a psychologist and the director of The Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab. He’s also the author of The War for Kindness.
Zaki’s work interests me for a lot of reasons, but one of them is I recently had a close relationship go wrong. I was stunned by this person’s behavior. As I noticed my feelings and thoughts about the person, I realized I was quite cynical about him. Even worse, the cynicism about him was affecting my thoughts about people in general.
Cynicism is a theory about people. When we start heading toward thoughts and stories about people that highlight their selfishness, greed, and dishonesty, we are moving toward dangerous AND unrealistic ground.
But I have some warm-heartedness toward cynics. Often if you scratch a cynic’s soul, you’ll find a discouraged and disappointed idealist underneath. Something has happened that made him or her ratchet up, to be hyper focused - even beyond our common negativity bias, attention on the worst acts of human beings. Then the cynics mentally rehash and share with others in conversations including their social media posts the worst moments of humanity. They make unwise generalizations. Like me.
Unfortunately, cynicism is on the rise and it’s not good for anything that I can think of. When we are cynics, we think no one cares much about us. We think most people dislike helping others. We think people are only honest because they fear getting caught.
It should shock no one that cynics tend to suffer more from depression, anxiety, and loneliness. They are more likely to develop diabetes and heart disease. Their relationships tend not to go so well.
Somewhere along the line, we started thinking that cynics are smarter. Cynics actually perform worse on cognitive tests. Cynics also see all the problems of society. And here is where it really hurts, they are terrible at imagining solutions.
We don’t find many cynics involved in making the world a better place. They vote less, they generally give up quickly on fighting for a better future. Cynicism harms us not only as individuals, but also harms our communities. I saw a meme lately where Gen Zers were calling out the cynicism of boomers (particularly about the future) with, “Ok, Doomer.”
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not promoting ignoring our problems and I’m okay, as is Zaki, with skepticism (which is basically about looking around for plenty of solid evidence before committing yourself to an opinion). Naïve trusters only focus on other people’s kindness and ignore that people can also do harm. Both the cynics and the naïve trusters ignore the evidence.
And here’s the evidence that often gets ignored. Study after study demonstrates that average people are often quite kind, open-minded, warm, and compassionate. And it's not a new thing. It's in our DNA.
What Zaki promotes is skeptical hope. Skeptical Hope? Is hope to be encouraged? Is it a naïve approach to life, does it ignore problems?
According to research, hopeful people tend to be happier, more resilient, and even more effective. Hope has huge benefits for both individuals and societies. Hopeful people pursue goals skillfully and tenaciously, but not rigidly. They pay attention to evidence and can see when a course correction is necessary. Hope is a way of taking off “mud colored glasses.” Hope is a way of seeing reality more objectively.
For me and for those of us who sometimes see ourselves headed toward cynicism about people and society, here are a three tips from Zaki.
Take small, calculated leaps of faith in other people, giving them chances to show us who they are.
Share differently. We tend to talk a lot about the worst things that people do, and that type of gossip is understandable, but we might try positive gossip sharing instead. Tell someone the kind and wonderful things you see people doing.
Find trustworthy examples of hopeful people and hang out with them either in person or follow their work – read their books, listen to podcasts or read articles
One of the standard protocols we have in our weekly compassion circle is to share stories of compassion we have either been involved in ourselves or compassionate acts we have witnessed. It keeps us alert for the good in ourselves and others. Zaki calls that looking for moral beauty in the world. It elevates us and helps us see that goodness is all around us.
Most of us have brains designed to notice the worst. We click on that outlandish headline of someone doing an awful thing - it’s that negativity bias I have mentioned many times, and we all know about.
When we think hopefully, we entertain the idea that things could turn out well. We look for people who are making a difference, the helpers of the world. Jane Goodall was one of those people I listened to when I wanted to screw my hopeful head on. We can still listen to her in her writing and on recorded interviews telling us that she has hope…in the enormous kindness and creativity of humanity.
How might we journey together to The Good Life by using skeptical hope...taking small hopeful risks, sharing stories of the best of humanity, and hanging out with hopeful folks (and keeping those giants of hope's spirit alive)?
Sidebar: Even in Goodall's writing (The Book of Hope :A Survival Guide for Trying Times) I can hear her gentle and yet almost stubborn way of teaching us to keep our hearts and heads open when it would be easier to shut them down. Here are her four reasons she still believes in the possibility of a better world.
First, she trusts in the amazing human intellect. Jane has seen, again and again, how our creativity and imagination can turn problems into solutions. We are capable of great harm, yes, but also of astonishing innovation when we set our minds to healing.
Second, she points to the resilience of nature. She has walked in places that once seemed destroyed and later watched them bloom again. A tree grows out of scorched ground, animals return when given a patch of safety, rivers clear themselves when the poisons stop. Nature’s quiet insistence on life gives her courage.
Third, Jane turns her eyes to young people. She never hides her belief that they are her greatest hope. Their energy, their daring, their refusal to be trapped in old patterns—it all fuels her trust that the next generation will carry the torch higher than the last.
And finally, she names the indomitable human spirit. Even in the deepest valleys, people rise. They sacrifice, they forgive, they keep going. Jane has witnessed in refugee camps, in villages, and in families the strength of people who will not give up on life or on one another.
When I read her words, I feel something stir. Hope, as Jane describes it, is not about closing our eyes to the darkness and the sorrow. It is about choosing to believe that we are not finished yet. That our minds, our earth, our children, and our spirits are still stronger than the darkness.
Jane made it clear that the life and the world situation could look hopeless if you don't keep your eye on the good and on what you could do locally. That helps me. Maybe you'd like to join me in watching some of Jane's interviews today...Love and HOPE, June
I have added here just three of the many examples John and I (really it's John who has the eye for this) noticed on our walk at Lake Wenatchee recently. They are testimonies to nature's quiet insistence on life.
This part of the post is actually related to the previous post entitled All Problems Are Social Problems. A reader wanted more explanation of that, so pardon the lengthy explanation, but hope it helps.
A social problem, from a sociological and systems-thinking perspective, is any condition or process that harms individuals or groups because of the way society is organized. It’s not just an individual mishap—it’s a breakdown or distortion in relationships, institutions, values, or shared understanding that leads to suffering or dysfunction on a wider scale.
Every human problem—whether it looks personal, biological, economic, or environmental—exists within networks of human relationships. Systems thinking reminds us that outcomes arise from interactions, not from isolated parts. So even problems that seem purely individual or technical have social roots in how people relate, organize, and make meaning together.
Health problems: Obesity, depression, or addiction are shaped not only by biology but by social systems—food marketing, urban design, access, information availability, and cultural expectations. The World Health Organization calls these social determinants of health.
Economic problems: Unemployment, inflation, or poverty appear to be market issues, yet they stem from political choices, education systems, and cultural attitudes about fairness and success.
Environmental problems: Climate change or wildfires are physical processes, but what turns them into crises is how humans cooperate (or fail to cooperate)—our consumption patterns, governance, and communication.
Psychological problems: Even loneliness or anxiety—often labeled “personal”—arise from social isolation, broken trust, stigma, or cultural pressures. The Harvard Study of Adult Development concluded that “the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives.”
From a systems perspective, a “problem” is not located in one part but in the relationships between parts. The late systems theorist Donella Meadows wrote, “The source of most system problems lies in the system structure, not in the people.”
A short version...a problem is social when it is caused, sustained, or can be solved only through collective action or changes in human relationships. Since nearly every issue humans face involves other people’s behaviors, expectations, or institutions, all problems are social problems. They arise from the same web of interdependence that makes us human—and they will be solved only when that web becomes more compassionate, just, and wise which largely rests on our ability to connect and understand others' situations and perspectives.
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