I’m trying not to grow angry and bitter, but we live in such a short-sighted culture. The old cliche “But what have you done for me lately?” comes to mind. Years of loyalty are tossed aside at the slightest inconvenience, and the vast majority of people are only interested in today, now, right now, this instant. The future does not exist, and the past never happened. If you are not valuable this instant, you are worthless, or at least made to feel that way. For now, I’ll bite my tongue; it’s not worth any more energy from me right now. I’m trying not to grow cold and callous, but it gets harder every single day.
Big Owl's Tree 
Hi David,
I totally understand what you’re dealing with. It’s the little things like standing in line at the pharmacy and some person pretends not to recognize where the end of the line is and so just jumps in front of you as if you’re not standing there looking like an aimless person waiting in line. They know you’re waiting in a line but they just don’t care. I’m sad to say that this anomaly is occurring with the elders much more than usual. They think they can play the “I’m old” card and gain instant respect. I say, “you’re old, not stupid so don’t play stupid.” I see it a lot around here and it makes me mad and bitter. I hope not to offend anyone by my statement but it’s how I feel.
I believe this is not new. It is a phenomenon directly connected to human greed. As we age, some of us become more acutely aware of all the crap around us. It is not a bad thing to reassess our view of the world. If we let that change redefine our efforts to be the people that make the world worth living in, that is when you have let the dark win. Just b/c you suspect the worst might happen, doesn’t mean you let go of the hope that it might not.
Cynicism is a type of fear– a fear that you haven’t the strength to keep going, so just give up.
There is a dark fantasy series I like by Karen Moning. In it, one of the main characters advises the heroine, “Hope strengthens. Fear kills.”
The universe is a random, uncaring place. At the end of the day, all we ever have is hope.