One of the main things that jumped out at me when I was looking at old content for the anniversary retrospective a couple of weeks back was how incredibly pissed off I seemed to have been over the past twenty years or so. It seems like I hated pretty much everything. That wasn’t really the case, of course, but the whole site did seem really negative…not that I necessarily thought (or think) of that as a completely bad thing.
I’m still pretty ill-tempered, cynical, and curmudegeonly. A lot of things irritate me, piss me off, and just generally compel me to ridicule the individual(s) or orgnization(s) who are responsible for them. It’s part of who I am and part of what many people seem to have liked about me over the years. I think, though, that I’ve gotten a lot better–especially over the past couple of years–at focusing on things I do like, both in my life and in the virtual representations thereof. If someone is an idiot, I will not hesitate to call him one, particularly if that idiocy is harmful or potentially harmful to someone else. But I don’t get off on hating things anymore, or at least not like I apparently used to.
I think this is due to the fact that I do kind of enjoy things and take more pleasure in life now. I’m happier in general than I have been in a long time. Either as a cause or an effect of that fact, I tend to focus more energy on things and people and issues that make me happy than on those that don’t–which explains why I curate my Twitter feed so carefully, among other things. I mean things like experiencing music and history and cities and buildings and food and life rather than bitching (quite so much) about what stupid people do.
It’s also due to the fact that hating everything gets really exhausting after a few years or decades.
David,
I’ve always loved you for your negativity! It makes me feel better about my own. Ha!
Glad to help. For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s terribly likely I’ll be turning into a bastion of positive energy anytime soon.
I’ve been noticing your less negative trend for some time. I think getting out of a place you had grown to hate (SF) probably played a big role in the process.
You’d think so, and I’m sure that plays into it, but I was pretty negative in some ways after the move as well. The bigger issue is that it seemed like at some point I crossed the line between “charming curmudgeon” and “asshole.” I hope I’ve crossed back in the past few years. “Charming curmudgeon” has always been the goal…