Lately, I've had a lot of friends do something that irks me a bit, probably because I've been so often guilty of it, myself. I call it "Dead-End Complaining," though there's gotta be a better name for it out there. Basically, it's arguing about some injustice or stupidity when (a) there's no realistic chance that the complaint will do a damn bit of good and (b) it does more damage to complain rather than to just go along with it, whatever it is. I can best illustrate with an example I posted on this here blog in July of '08. I was reporting on an experience I had at the airport…
Security at LAX was the usual drag, made draggier by a raging debate ahead of me in my line. A lady who looked a lot like Paris Hilton (but wasn't) was refusing to remove her footwear…and getting very loud and strident about it. On one hand, she had a point. They were sandals — and I could have hidden a lot more weaponry or explosives in my wallet, which I did not have to put on the conveyor belt, than she could have secreted in her flip-flops. On the other hand, it was not like she had a prayer of winning the argument and having one lowly Security Agent reverse TSA policy.
"You're required to put your shoes through the x-ray," said a man of steadily-diminishing patience while behind us, we could all hear voices crying out, "My plane leaves in ten minutes" or similar pleas. For some reason, no one thought to move her to one side and debate the issue while others passed on through. Paris kept responding, as if someone was paying her to say it as many times as possible, "But these are not shoes." She was right on some theoretical level but wrong to think she was getting on her plane without complying. By the time she did as ordered, the line behind her was the length of the Nile and at least a few people had probably missed their flights.
There are many perfectly good reasons in this world to complain about what you perceive as "wrongs," the first being that sometimes, the complaint causes someone to actually right the wrong. At the very least, you put your dissatisfaction out there into the atmosphere where it might combine with the gripes of others and become a force so potent that it will foment change. That's all well and good, but in the above example, Not Paris Hilton was bitching about being inconvenienced a little and in so doing, was inconveniencing others a lot.
She was wasting her own time and compounding the inconvenience to herself…but more significant is that she was wasting others' time and wronging an awful lot of other people. If there was any chance her protest could somehow trickle up to the TSA management and promote a policy change, it was microscopic compared to making strangers, at that moment, wait longer in line and perhaps miss their flights. At some point, you also had to feel sorry for the poor Security Agent who had to endure her rage and who wasn't allowed to say, preferably in a loud Lewis Black impression, "Hey, I know it's ridiculous but I don't make the rules, lady!"
Complaining has other uses. There are times when one just needs to kvetch, just to let it out. There are times when you do it so others will reassure you that you're not the one being crazy; that the offense really is as illogical and vile as it seems. There are also times when complaints are just plain entertaining. I carry on about a lot of stuff not because I think it's going to rectify matters but because it seems like it might amuse the folks around me, especially when their frustrations match mine. If we can all make a joke out of it, that's so much better than being angry about that particular nuisance.
That said, I increasingly come to see that there are also times when complaining wastes time…and maybe fools you into thinking you're solving a problem when you're not. Lately, I've had a couple of friends call to gripe about some crappy thing that was done to them. On and on they go, not getting it when I say, "You're absolutely right. That's a stupid/lousy/unfair [whatever] thing that was done to you…and telling me about it for an hour is not going to solve anything. You need to figure out how to press on in spite of it." Often, the only possible solution is not to fix the wrong but to find a way to work around it.
There's also complaining as what, back in the sixties, we called an "attention-getting device." It's kind of like, "Show that I matter by listening to my beef" and there's also complaining as a form of snobbery…but we won't get into those. One of the reasons though that I no longer actively participate in the Writers Guild is that I realized that about 90% of the complaints I had to listen to there were in one or both of those categories.
It's a bit early for New Year's Resolutions but there's no law that says you can't make one in November. I intend to keep complaining —
- — when there's a realistic chance that it can do some good.
- — when I need to vent and it won't inconvenience anyone else if I do vent. And, lastly —
- — when I think it's funny.
But I resolve to try and not confuse #2 and #3 with #1. And I further resolve to take the time I'd otherwise spend grumbling about some destructive force that I cannot halt and use it to figure out how to dodge or at least minimize the harmful effects of that force. Most of all, I think I need to stop listening to people who do what I'm going to try to not do. Life is just too friggin' short.