Being a Libra though, i see all sides and i understand what you mean. I am jaded to the core, but like I said, with the stuff that really is crap (which seems at times to be 98 percent of everthing that assaults our perceptions on a daily basis.) But the good true human stuff (and non-human nature) I love without reservation.

A cat just jumped onto my shoulder and is now perched over it watching my fingers tap the keys.

I stand corrected.

I dunno, you'll have to elaborate. I think you're missing something.

Why and how would I volunteer and organize things and go to parties and generally have a blast and on and on if I was jaded and dismissive? (Although overly sensitive is something I've always been, being Pisces Moon i guess.)

Now, today specifically, I have a sort of mid-summer mind-flu that is keeping me down and out in NE Portland. But in general, yes my life has gotten better, and the specific reason why is that I have managed to more often than not transcend the jadedness and negativity and misanthropy that used to keep me from giving a shit about anything, in particular my own happiness. Do you understand what I'm saying? If my life is "better" now than it used to be (and it pretty much is) it is because I am generally upbeat and non-jaded about the things that matter. As for all the pop-cultural crapola and politics and cynicism, I see it clearly for what it is, and despise it, but don't invest much energy in it either pro or con.
It's like i have an instantaneous bullshit filter, or something like a psychic ability to see to the heart of things and situations (and people.) This tends to give me a melancholic outlook, "reality" being so sad so often, but beneath and above that is the true heart of things, which I also see, and which is (to quote Keroac) a shining Golden Eternity. So that's what keeps the blackness back, usually. But pausing in the dark place at the perfect juncture where things are what they *seem* to be but a strange beautiful light is illuminating the motes and charging the air, that's the place where any creative arts i've ever done (whether visual or musical/lyrical) comes from. I'd hate to lose that, so it is a precarious balancing game for me to be fully happy and upbeat and social and in-relationship, and yet also still see things as they are, at all their levels (regardless of whether I summon the energy to make "art" out of that perception.)

Funny how you drew this long of a response out of me isn't it? You being you and me being me.

Have you noticed how jaded you've become, Daniel? When did that happen? Over the last 4 or 5 years it seems. The better your life becomes the more dismissive and negative you are about your fellow humans.
Or am I missing something?