I am cynical (in the best sense of the word) but it's a lousy label to be given - now that cynical is more likely to be used about heartless behaviour and manipulation by those in power.

The only low-life cynicism I can think of right now is conspiracy theory....

It's a shame. I identify with Diogenes because of his preference for a simple life - not getting involved in the world of 'working for others' as a trade-off to get 'things'.

"Diogenes of Sinope, d. c.320 BC, was a Greek philosopher, perhaps the most noted of the CYNICS. He pursued the Cynic ideal of self-sufficiency, a life that was natural and not dependent upon the nonessential luxuries of civilization.
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Because Diogenes believed that virtue was better revealed in action than in theory, he made his life a protest against what he thought of as a corrupt society. He is said to have lived in a large tub, rather than a house, and to have gone about Athens with a lantern in the daytime, claiming to be looking for an honest man--but never finding one. In later art, Diogenes is often depicted in a torn cloak, with a dog, carrying a lantern.
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{sin'-iks} The Cynics were adherents of a Greek philosophic school founded in the 4th century BC by ANTISTHENES. Its best-known member was DIOGENES OF SINOPE. Antisthenes held that happiness is achieved by cultivating virtue for its own sake. This is attained, he said, by conducting a life free of dependence on possessions and pleasures.
The Cynics admired SOCRATES for his self-sufficiency and his indifference to unnecessary luxury and possessions. A good life, they taught, involves a return to nature, giving up the decadence of civilized urban life and living simply and strenuously. Their name is generally supposed to come from the Greek kynikos, "doglike," presumably a commentary on their severely critical philosophic style"