Complaining

[merlekitty]

Something that made me curious in recent days... why do humans complain? Is it something that human beings do? There seem to be two types of complaints that I'm aware of. The complaining because you want something done and the complaining because it makes you feel better. I'm pretty certain every living thing does the former, I'm more curious

Comments

[boxie]

hehe.. you reminded me why I hadn't posted in a while. It always seems I'm more prepared to vent than to say things are going ok.

And that's pretty much the issue. In mechanical terms, when a system builds up pressure, you need some way to vent that pressure to prevent explosion. Human machines work in a similar fashion. You complain, you feel better. But some people kind of get those 2 things mixed up and complain simply for the euphoria of it. Basically they become verbal masochists. While the rest of us sit back going, uh, how are you happy when all you do is complain. Being in an entertainment industry, you've seen this up close. The hardcore fans that complain about everything. And we would talk about all the time, why do they watch this stuff if it brings them that much misery.

So in the end, complaining/venting is good if you are getting the right thing out of it. In many ways writing or speaking out a problem helps to present solutions. You see the error, you correct the error. Other times its simply a way to bleed off pressure so the system doesn't explode. And I do believe this goes beyond just us human beings. When I lived in Louisiana, I had a bird feeder outside the kitchen window. I came down one morning to hear a pecking at the window. There was a cardinal tapping away to let me know the bird feeder was empty. He stayed there tapping until I went outside to refill the feeder.

Complaining and venting are also words with very different connotations. Say you come home from a pretty hard day of work, and are instantly thrust in to someone's problem. From their point of view they are venting to ease their frustration. But you see it as complaining because you are not mentally prepared to handle that onslaught. Had this happened after a nice relaxing day for you and you are ready for action, you may have seen this as something completely different.

Just remember with whatever happens, in the end its how you deal with it. It's the age old problem of when you say it hurts when you do this, did you stop or keep doing it? Did anything change?