Growing Pains

I'm NOT complaining here.

The writing of this entry has been a revelatory experience actually! I have yet to get a podcast out, I know. (The marantz is coming, it really is.) If the particular podcaster is reading this, for which this entry he is the subject, I hope he understands I have no ill will, just a mystery of sentiments that I am sorting out.

See, I've been listening to other podcasters. And I’ve been thinking.

I'm learning not only should one not have a long podcast, but one should keep COMPLAINING on one’s podcast to a minimum. It's a seductive smokescreen that can at first bring you in, but in the end, there seems to be a point of no return where the complaining becomes too much.

In these circumstances, I say to myself, “How did I end up listening to this crap?”

Maybe this is due to the lack of an editorial process to podcasting in general. I'm learning. It's not heartening that even "veteran" podcasters are not immune to falling into the trap of ranting to the point of boredom.

But I'm going to try my hardest to refrain from self-indulgent complaining in my own podcast. It's just poor form.

Especially when there is no point to it. It reminds me when I was in art school and a performance-art student would enter the classroom, naked, except that he was covered in mud, and then let out an ear-shattering shriek. Even then, I felt that the money for art school tuition would be better spent on psychotherapy.

Solipsism is a good word to use here, methinks.

Why am I making this pact to myself to not complain on my podcast? Because I try to think globally and act locally. When I hear some of the bitching that goes on in podcasts, I find myself dumbfounded. There is so much suffering in the world, you know?

I mean real suffering. Like: not getting enough to eat; battling cancer; losing a loved one in a war you don't believe in; or not being able to follow the religious practices of your choice without facing ridicule, persecution or death.

This, my friends, is real suffering, wouldn't you agree? Now, granted, I am wise enough to know that I can't save the world. I have a particularly small bubble of influence, as bubbles of influence go. Despite that, I try to keep things in perspective. I try to stay informed with global suffering, because it keeps me human. It guards my sensitivity. And the last thing I want to be is insensitive, and self-brooding.

So, what do I mean about acting locally? I'm glad you asked that. It means, to me, gentle reader, to live my life in harmony with what's going on, as best I can, in as cheerful of a manner that I can. Even though I know that there will be days, weeks, months, or even years, where my life will not progress in the manner I would choose.

I know I must try to do my best to face it with a big heart, a healthy mind, and as much courage as I need to see it to the end. (Yes, I’m making reference to three friends of Dorothy).

The other side to this is that I have a strong belief that a habit of complaining makes me stupid. I mean stupid in the true sense of the word:
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stupid - 1 a : slow of mind : b : given to unintelligent decisions or acts : acting in an unintelligent or careless manner c : lacking intelligence or reason : 2 : dulled in feeling or sensation : 3 : marked by or resulting from unreasoned thinking or acting.
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There are millions who quietly suffer their lives' burdens when there is no choice but to do so. And I admire them, they are the true heroes of the world.

If you are asking what is it, pray tell, that got me in this funk? Well, you already know about my tangle with Cush of Things I Say. And I'm not going to rehash it, I've said enough about it. And bless him for existing and teaching me a few things, if only by example of what's in the negative space.

But yesterday, I was listening to a podcast by a very well-known podcaster, and the entire show was complaining. The guy was complaining about his wife, among other apparently trivial things.

What is it about American culture that makes it OK to air one's dirty laundry about one's marriage? If my siggy-O were to take to complaining about our relationship on the internet waves, I would get out of that relationship as fast as a speeding bullet.

It smacks of passive aggressive behavior, if you ask me, which I know you're not asking. I volunteer this too: isn't it a dangerous act to include absolute strangers in one's marriage? You can take that literally, as in having extra-marital affairs, but you can also take that in the abstract, like telling strangers about a fight you had, without the apparent consent of the spouse to disclose it.

Isn’t this the beginning of murdering the vital trust necessary to allow a relationship to live and flourish? Is this dignified behavior? Surely, it is unspeakably hurtful and no good can come of it. So this is one transgression I find upsetting in my research of the podcasting medium.

Now, given that one might feel such helplessness that one has to appeal to strangers on the internet for help, I suppose there is nothing wrong with that, if help is what you are looking for. Especially if the hurt one experiences from marital friction is beyond one's capacity to handle. Say, if the spouse were abusive, or neglectful, in a universally disagreeable way. Reaching out to "friends" on the internet is very forgivable, in my estimation.

But when one is preoccupied with grand-standing on the frustration of having one's furniture moved due to painting the interior of one's house, and admitting the strain of the inconvenience on one's marriage (which from here on out, I will call "bitching about paint chips") there is something seriously wrong here.

I could let it go if this were a one-time incident. But just a few shows before, THAT show was dedicated to complaining about scratched furniture. He sounds like an upper-middle class housewife without a life, dear friends.

Now, I don't mean to represent that I believe all upper-middle class housewives don't have lives. But there are some, like any other member of any other group in society, who indeed do not have lives. They have too much time on their hands and are obsessing on self-inflicted discomforts, such as bitching about misplacing household appliances and the color of paint chips. If you can't stand the temporary discomfort required when painting the interior of your house, then don't do it. Go help out in a soup kitchen.

But there’s more here than meets the eye: if you're going to let that level of discomfort plummet so low, that it is going to poison the relationships with your loved ones, there's something terribly sad about that. Something deeply sad. Approaching pathetic.

And then it gets even worse, when one goes to the internet and divulges all this, under the guise of comedy, to a sea of strangers over the internet, to be listened to forevermore in the here and hereafter.

And that's my challenge with this particular podcaster. It’s like selling paparazzi photos to the National Inquirer of Marriage.

Doesn't he recognize all that he's got going for him? There are people far and wide who have their lives irrevocably altered against their wills and he's bitching about paint chips.

On the whole, it's not funny. Even though it's intended to be, I suppose. I'm going to make an effort to see the humor. And I guess that would be that there is a sort of role-reversal going on here:

I could take the cheapest shot and say what an inherent loser this guy is. But I honestly don't feel that way. He's doing the best that he can with what he's got. Boredom does terrible things to people: not being able to live your life as you'd like to is about as enjoyable as living with an ingrown toenail.

Let’s pan outward: when women are housewives and bitching about paint chips, why does it seem that they are ridiculed for their gender? Are they irrelevant for having such frivolous worries? You might guess where I am going with this: when this guy complains, does it make it any different because he's a househusband?

I would argue, gentle readers, no.

The frustrated 1950's housewife of olde was not, after all, hysterical for, well, being frustrated. The fact that this fellow is confronting the same discomforts of fleets of post-war married women and today’s single moms: caring for children and their naturally undying demands, lack of intellectual stimulation, lack of contact with one's peers -- just the general absence of adult psychic nourishment in taking the role of a house-spouse, can make anyone frustrated and it has nothing to do with gender, a chromosomal flaw, or having a uterus as a part of your human make-up. And he proves it.

I am in no way implying that we should abolish the house-spouse role. I'm just recognizing the "occupational hazards", as it were, of the job; as well as appreciating the amount of work and endurance it takes to get up and do it everyday until such time the children leave the nest.

I am also in no way objecting to this podcaster's existence, nor am I saying he should change, or that he is somehow defective. I find aspects of his character to be courageous, if unwittingly so. In one popeye-esque blow, he defies the status quo of the normative-nuclear-family father. He deserves extra respect for that.

There is not one hint of irony here. I am earnest.

See, some men might become disturbed to discover he is not the breadwinner of the family. It might challenge their own sense of what it means to be a man. And given our society, I am hazarding a guess that our podcaster has had many an internal conflict regarding self-identity and self-esteem. And how he sorts that out is not for me to judge. That's just the process of maturing fully as a human being that we all must do as adults. We each do the best we can.

In the end, I feel for the guy in the same way I feel for generations of women who felt unfulfilled in the inflexible traditional role of the child-rearing housewife. Though his situation is not ordinary, it's nothing new. What's amusing is that I'm fortunate to see the day when the shoe is on the other foot.