Grouch

We need more understanding of human nature, because the only real danger that exists is man himself. He is the great danger. And we are pitifully unaware of it. We know nothing of man…far too little. His psyche should be studied – because we are the original of all coming evil.  -  Carl Jung, Interview with John Freeman, Face to Face, 1959

Homo homini lupus est  - Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

I’m a grouch, and proud of it. Proud to be a grouch. Who can live in this world without struggle? Without friction? Without animus or conflict?

No one. It’s far from being a perfect world. It’s not even what I would call an imperfect world. You know, a world that’s basically pretty cool but with a few flaws here and there. This isn’t that kind of world.

By world, I don’t mean the planet. The planet is fantastic. Planet Earth is an orb of inconceivable beauty. Seen from outer space it’s absolutely gorgeous: a marbled sphere of blue and white in deep cold space glowing with soft cottony benevolence, the evident browns and greens of land contrasting with the blue of the oceans and intimating in the general swirl of cloud and ocean the steam of fecundity. It’s no wonder that life emerged here. How could you stop it? Every molecule and atom on this planet must’ve been trembling with an inner divinity, an unstoppable urge to cohere into something mobile and marvelous.

What makes the planet a miserable place are human beings. They’re fucking awful. We have them to thank for famine, war, brutality, cruelty, imprisonment, injustice, disease, rape, thievery, slavery, homicide, genocide, pesticide, pillaging, marauding, desolation, desecration, tyranny, coercion, oppression, intimidation, brutishness, barbarity and merciless, interminable predation.

Their weapons are beautiful, I’ll give them that. Swords, knives, cannons, missiles. A double-edged iron sword with a pommel guard skillfully inlaid with a patterned series of copper lozenges bordered in bronze is a thing of beauty, as is an ebony and ivory javelin from the joint reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III in ancient Egypt. It’s ironic that some of the world’s finest art takes the form of instruments for killing one another.

Are all human beings awful? Yeah, pretty much. Every now and then a Jesus or a Buddha or a Mahatma Gandhi happens along but mostly it’s douche bags and assholes riding the subway or driving on the freeway.

If you don’t believe me, ask someone close to you. Someone you can trust for an honest answer. They’ll probably say the same thing. People are assholes.

I’m one myself. Total asshole. If I wasn’t, would I be saying these things?

Keep in mind, nothing is black and white. The same person who just betrayed his best friend in order to get a coveted job or routinely flies missions dropping bombs on enemy territory that knowingly kills a high percentage of innocent women and children might be the same person who sacrifices their life for a complete stranger in a monsoon or wildfire or performs a great kindness to someone in need in a desolate part of town or collapses with grief after a cat or dog died.

Life is a mess. People are unfathomable. So why the taboo against grumpiness?

There are seven soliloquies in Hamlet, each one a complaint. These are unequivocally some of the most beautiful speeches in the English language, and they’re all for the purpose of censure and rebuke, quite often self-censure, self-rebuke, but rebuke and censure all the same.

Stand-up comics rant constantly, but they put a spin on it and it comes out as humor. There is clearly an art to complaining. Discontent is often the engine of great eloquence, great insight.

It’s a tough world and it makes people hard. Hard to deal with, hard to be around.

I will say this: most people I know, and most people I hear about in the news or encounter in the public at the grocery store or bank do try to do what is best for other people, sometimes gladly, sometimes begrudgingly, sometimes simply not to get arrested. One thing all people have in common is pain: isolation, loneliness, fear, insecurity, and death. We all die, and we all know we die. That’s the human condition. As conditions go, it’s a pretty shitty condition.

So people do what they can. Some people drink, some people exercise like crazy, some people fuck like crazy, some people find sanctuary in porn, some people find redemption in giving, some people find relief and sublimation in creativity, some people find temporary relief in a bottle of booze or a few milligrams of Vicodin.

Me, I like to complain. I’m a grouch.

Françoise Héritier, the French anthropologist, ethnologist and author said on a recent episode of La Grande Librairie, a French talk show about books, that the suffering she discovered in certain places in Africa was so great that no one ever complained. Everyone was resigned. It never occurred to anyone to complain. What good would it do? People accepted suffering as a part of life and thought no further of it. They simply endured. They worked and struggled to feed their children and survive. I cannot help but feel chastened by this. I complain because I feel unjustifiably abused. That’s crazy. Who the fuck am I?

It’s an embarrassment, I’ll say that. But I’ll keep doing it. Call it an addiction. Call it foolish. Call it stupid and entitled and not a little ridiculous. But that’s me. A grouch and his horde of pet peeves, funny little monkeys of the brain swinging back and forth from vine to vine, groan to groan.