WORDS TO GRIPE BY

I’ve heard some people speak of words to live by. A wonderful sentiment. However, the last thing I recall we live by breathing, eating and drinking. There is a saying about making people eat their words, but believe me you would hardly survive by eating a thesaurus or dictionary.

Which is why I think the really important issue is words to gripe by. Life does have its less that glamorous moments and the plain fact is that no matter how we try we can’t avoid the moments, which some call “character” building experiences. That a nice way of speaking about the dumb and stupid, anal retentive episodes that stir that Neanderthal element of the marrow so you wish you had a club or rock.

Today we do live in the pseudo illusion of a civilized society. This means solving problems by running over someone with a truck or bashing their head in with a rock is just not socially acceptable.

Plus you have the added complication of knowing these days between the liberal nature of the courts and general ineptness of the government that too many injustices never get resolved. So unless you are in the mood to live the short life of a vigilante you probably will end up being pissed most of the time more than having a smile.

My view is that you can avoid that reality. And I happen to subscribe to the idea that what happens is that the frustrations simmer in our lives and eventually boil over when we just can’t handle it any longer.

That normally happens of course when it is totally inappropriate. Like with road rage. Some average joe is tooling down the road, something pisses him off and the next thing you know he’s pulling out a cannon and using you for target practice. Later the neighbors will say that he was a quiet person. Well that will sort of blow that image when he is a guest of the state.

So my suggestion is learn to savor the words to gripe by. Come on and just enjoy being pissed off with a few choice comments about how life sucks. Enough to truly get anger out of your system.

If you get practiced enough at it then you can really have a good time. You’ll feel so much better than perhaps the world won’t look quite as bad after all. Maybe you’ll even stop and find something to smile about if your lucky.

You can call that being negative. I call it a form of therapy. And I think if we stop kidding ourselves about the nonsense of only wanting to happy thoughts, then we can rejoice in our misery.

That’s right, I said rejoice in it. Come on we can make a wonderful game out of it. Just something to make life truly worth living. And with a little practice we might even get good at it!