Hello. I’m Jeremy Hankins, and I’m a curmudgeon. That’s if you want to be nice. If you’re upset with me I’m a pain in the butt, or worse. Sometimes I’m not much fun to be around; those who are close to me help me to understand this. But I don’t intend to change.
I could say that it’s because curmudgeons like me are useful to have around, even if unpleasant. That, like Socrates, we’re gadflies that sting society in tender places. We stir the lumbering leviathan to move when it cannot stir itself. But I don’t really believe it. It’s not that I think my grumpiness is unjustified. I just don’t think it does any good. People just get annoyed and throw up flimsy defenses to convince themselves that criticisms don’t apply to them. It’s always everybody else who’s misbehaving, it’s those others who are behind the ills of society. Not that I’m any different. I do the same thing and only rarely (and usually too late to do any good) do I see it. That’s how we human beings are: we never admit we’re wrong unless we want to, which isn’t often.
But giving up being a curmudgeon would mean giving up part of who I am. I’m a pain in the butt because I don’t like the way things are. I try to hold it in unless I think I have something constructive to say, which is rare. No one should have to listen to negativity to no purpose. But it leaks out anyway. There’s nothing I can do about it short of trying not to see the things I don’t like, and I’m not going to do that.
So I’m a pain. And sometimes I bring others pain. And I’m not going to change.
