Time for another moan, I think. There’s nothing more constructive than a good moan. It’s therapeutic. It gets things off of chests which might otherwise prove burdensome. How can the human race hope to improve if people aren’t prepared to find fault? Moaning, my friends, points the way to the stars.
And yet... whenever someone complains about something like, oh, a chat-show host saying ‘titties’ or something, it’ll be followed by the inevitable response, ‘Don’t you have more important things to worry about?’ Their point being, why moan about mere trivialities? Get a sense of perspective!
A sense of perspective is good. I’m not knocking perspective. It’s a useful thing, it helps you tell the difference between small things which are nearby and large things which are a long way away. But, ooh, this response really gets my goat, and not just my goat, it gets my entire farmyard. It’s so smug, so knee-jerk, so... lazy. (Though the lazy use of the word ‘lazy’ in criticism is another irritant I shall salve through the power of moaning at a later date).
I mean, are these people leading by example? Are they busy, out crusading for liberty and justice? No. They’re on the internet, moaning at people for moaning. Glass house, pebble in flight. What could be more trivial? (Expect possibly this blog, moaning at people for moaning at people for moaning.)
I worry about the important things. Scarcely a day doesn’t go by without me fretting about global warming. I also fret about my family, my friends, my bank account. But the trivial... oh, the trivial is what day-to-day life is about. Trivial is gossip. Trivial are the stitches that make up life’s rich tapestry.
Trivial things are well worth complaining about. After all, you have to start somewhere.