The Art of Complaining

The magnet on my grandmother's refrigerator read, "The more you complain, the longer God lets you live."  I believed this because grandma did.  In my corner of the world, this woman did no wrong.  Conclusion?  Don't complain.  When I found this same magnet in a gift shop I bought it, displaying it proudly on my dishwasher at eye-level, certain my son would see, learn, and agree.

There are chronic complainers in my life.  Every conversation we have is about what is wrong.  They're seldom able to talk about anything other than their latest problem.  It's true some times they are given massive doses of life-changing crises, sometimes back-to-back.  Then came the realization, the ones who always have issues are the same bunch--I can count them--and this begs the question, should grandma's magnet have read, "The more you complain the more crap God throws at you"?

I imagine us walking on a beach.  You're talking and I'm listening.  You're actually complaining.  Let's just get that out in the open.  Somewhere in this process a line magically appears in the sand.  This is the line at which I stop listening.  You cross it, this line, because you need to spill, but because your complaining becomes too much I tune out.  I'm not proud of this fact.  I'm sorry, sort of, but not enough to stop the line from appearing.

We all have this line.  It appears for us at different times.  Most of us who complain are unaware of its existence, that here is a cue for us to shut up and stop which is why we cross it.

I recently complained publicly online about my latest gripe.  It's a big gripe, and one I feel justified in sharing.  Did you want to know?  Probably not.  Did I care that you didn't?  Not really.  Did I cross your line?  Maybe.

The problem with complaining is just that:  we don't really want to know.  Most of us who ask the question, "How are you?" aren't particularly interested in what follows.  We want to hear, "Fine" and get on with the conversation.  We want to order our food, gossip, and talk about the latest books we've read.  Only with a select few do I ever allow myself to spew.

Complaining is an art few of us have mastered.  Without expelling problems, they fester.  They start to smell.  The corners in which we keep our problems hidden become infected, turning into pimples and boils filled with puss.

Pimples need to be popped.  Boils need to be lanced.  Infections in our bodies need to be removed.  The same goes for emotions.  Before we are molded by our culture, we are all base humans.  The same things make us happy:  good food, sex, companionship.  The same things make us sad:  death, rejection, indigestion.  It's through culture we are taught about "good" and "bad" emotions.  It's through culture we are taught to "control" our feelings.  In Japan, the prevailing sentiment when things to badly is to "suck it up and ride it through."  Perhaps that's too crass.  That said, the word and concepts behind gaman offer most Japanese little opportunity to complain.

There are 500,000 or more people going through varying degrees of trauma based on the same event.  The disaster that took place almost 36 months ago is old news in chronology but not in emotion.  Whoever said, "time heals all wounds" was wrong.  Time may lessen pain but in the past 36 months I've seen little healing.  Asking those who have experienced varying degrees of loss to "hang in there" by personifying strength, stoicism, and patience--all words applying to gaman--there are consequences to this assumption.  Not good ones, either. 

I do not complain to my friends in Tohoku because I feel my problems are insignificant in comparison.  I diminish my issues, whatever they may be and however large they are because, lets' face it, they seem petty in comparison to what they've gone through.

I have not mastered the art of complaining.  Neither have my many friends.  Those who should be allowed to release their pain don't, and those who ramble on don't see my line. 

Let it out or keep it in?  I write today not to offer solutions but to urge us all to think--myself included, of course.