Less critiquing, more complaining

Complainers annoy me, but they sadden me more.

Because people who bitch about everything and everything under the sun are signaling to the world that they have no power over their attitude.

And in this confusing and chaotic circus of a world we live in, attitude is really the only thing we do have control over.

Look, we all get upset when things don’t go our way. Show me a human who doesn’t and I’ll show you a robot.

But the chronic inability to respond to reality in an appropriate manner, that’s just immaturity. It may be a quick and easy way to get attention and gain authority and connect with others, but after a while, the only people who want to be around complainers are other complainers.

Rollins, my favorite punk rock spoken word artist, had a few things to say about this:

Stop whining about how today’s music sucks. Kids write me and tell me that their band will go nowhere because of all the bad bands in the world. I tell them there has always been awful music and that no great band ever wasted any time complaining, they just got it done. Their ropey ranting is just a way to get out of the hard work of making music that will do some lasting damage.

Are you complaining while others are taking your place in line? Maybe it’s time to update your channeling process. Finding healthy outlets for your frustration that actually create value in the world, rather than just soil people in your vicinity with your toxic bile.

That’s the advantage of complaining through making things. Not only the invaluable process of feeling your feelings of anger or frustration or disgust, but also converting them into something more meaningful.

Hell, most of my books and songs have been complaints, but the creative process assured that by the time those feelings came out on the other side, the toxicity was purged and only art was left.

Alchemists have been conducting this process thousands of years. Mystics transmuted base metals like lead into noble metals like gold and created elixirs of mortality that cured diseases.

Was it just mythological hogwash? New age superstition? It doesn’t matter. We should read those stories literately, not literally. Alchemy is a powerful analogy for personal transmutation and purification, and any of us can engage with it.

Moore’s book on the care of the soul says that life is our prima materia, aka, the ubiquitous starting material that’s required for the alchemical magnum opus and the creation of our philosopher’s stone. If we could learn to reframe our complains in that light, perhaps they would transmute into something else.

Remember, the fastest way to take ourselves out of the victim position in regards to life is to strive for complete abstinence from complaining about it. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
How might you form an alchemy where the lead of your rage is turned into the gold of your heightened consciousness?