On the Matter of Complaint.

‘He was a most worthy man and an example to us all,’ might read the obituary. ‘Life treated him with much unkindness and his troubles were great, yet never once did he complain.’

Why do people regard the lack of complaint as a sign of nobility? I don’t. Any reader of this blog knows that I’m never short of a complaint or two. I complain to managers of shops about their products or their stocking policies. I complain to all and sundry about the state of the world. I complain about the shortcomings of human nature. I complain about the weather. I complain about the airheaded pronouncements which drip from the mouths of policy makers and others in positions of influence. I complain about the absurdity of celebrity worship. I complain about the fact that the progress of life in the so-called developed world is largely driven by the self-interested few and the promotion of shallow and spurious priorities. Let anyone approach me and ask ‘How are you, Jeff’ and what do they inevitably get? A complaint.

I’m a whinger through and through, and I have no problem with the fact. If anybody cares to write an obituary for me, I expect it will begin: ‘He was a right bloody moaner, that one. Good riddance.’

Dylan Thomas, on the other hand, wrote: ‘Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.’ Did anybody call him a right bloody moaner?

I know I occasionally interrupt my natural inclination with a hint of praise where I feel it’s due, but only occasionally. I like exceptions to the rule. They are the stars in the dark night sky. 

Tonight I have a toothache. And ever since I started this new medication consequent upon my vascular procedure, the feeling of being weak, washed out and generally ill washes in and out several times a day like those waves on a beach in Tahiti I mentioned earlier. They’re the first two complaints which come to mind. The third is that I watched the first half hour of the movie Dead Poets Society tonight. The opening ten minutes reminded me of why I so despise the values held by white, upper middle class American culture. (To be fair, I think I was supposed to be so reminded.) ‘Excellence’ indeed! Do they not know that excellence is a variable concept based on a questionable value system? Idiots. The following twenty were more encouraging. I will persevere.