Bloggy Bitching

It is the natural state of human beings to be dissatisfied. There are those that maintain that it is the ultimate force of evolution.

Say I win the Amazing Lotto Lucky Super Jackpot Bonus Raffle and first prize is a brand new McLaren F1. I promptly loose my mind, running around, pumping my fist, yelling and screaming... utterly lost in a sea of ecstatic euphoria that I have acquired, for free, such a fine automobile. For the next few days, I'm floating on a cloud of happiness, spending every spare second not working, eating or sleeping with my new baby. Either driving it, showing it off to friends, relatives and (when I run out of everyone else) anyone who I can pin down long enough to tell them ALL about it, even rubbing it with a diaper.

But no matter how much I may wish otherwise, sooner or later, I've told everyone, taken more than my share of pointless trips into the countryside and talked about my new car till I'm blue in the face. Finally, it's time to go back to work, get on with life. It's still fun, getting in the car every day to go to work, driving it on the weekends and answering the occasional "Hey Pari? How's the new car?" question with a big grin and a thumbs up... but eventually, I find myself driving to work, all the way there, thinking about something else. Life intrudes and the thrill starts to fade... fade... fade into the backround. Eventually, even the neatest car becomes... just another car. On occasion I may be reminded how awesome my car is (like having to drive a rental or somesuch), but for the most part, compared to the happiness I felt when first winning my car... the thrill is gone.

That is life... it sucks but it's true. We get used to things. We adapt, whether we want to or not.

Now, it's not ALL bad. We don't just adapt to good things, we're good at adapting to bad things as well. We get over stuff. Eventually we return to the background, baseline state of the human mind.

It has, however, been noted that the baseline state of the human mind seems to be that of vague dissatisfaction. The feeling that, no matter how things are, they could be better. The grass may be green, but over the fence there, I'm sure it's a few shades greener.

What a wonderful, horrible trick.

A feeling that pretty much ensures that the human race will never be able to sit still. That we will constantly be pushing and pushing and pushing to improve our standings and surroundings.

"Dammit, I'm sure the Henderson's grass is greener. That's it, I'm going to invent a new fertilizer... and a new breed of grass... and a new irrigation system..."

Guaranteed progress at expense of a sense of accomplishment or satisfaction. Good for the species, not so hot for the individuals involved.

It is to this particular trait of human nature that I credit the over prevalence of Bitchiness that tends to pervade the blogosphere.

When there isn't much else to talk about in the day-to-day world, too often, people seem to fall to complaining about the littlest things in lieu of content.

When I started this blog, I promised myself that I wasn't going to spend my time bitching about every little thing. I will not focus on the daily dissatisfactions and petty whining. I won't invent things to complain about and I will try to keep my posts on the positive or at least neutral side on average.

One can, and should, fight this annoying trend of human existence with the liberal application of stalwart philosophy and self-confidence, something I've worked very hard at for most my life. This becomes increasingly difficult, however, in the face of the LONGEST winter I can remember, more setbacks than I would care to blog about, a stressful job, a crappy shift and the fact that lately I just can't seem to find anything fun to do to cheer me up.

So if you are wondering why the content is starting to slack a little bit... take heart. I do have plans for this blog and you will hear more from me... but these last couple weeks have sucked like a hull breach at Warp 9. I'm trying to stay positive but, if I don't have anything nice to say... I'd just rather not say anything at all.