Kelly Crigger's Blog - Posts Tagged "curmudgeonism"

If the government even hints at taking firearms people go ape shit, but when they openly declare that they’re going to take your money no one cares. When was the last time government took your guns? Never. When was the last time they took your money? Today.

And every day you buy something.

And every time you get a paycheck.

And when you get married.

And even when you die.

It’s called a tax and they’re everywhere.

The government constantly absorbs the wealth we accumulate and no one complains no matter how absurd the tax is, but even whisper “gun confiscation” and the torrent of almighty hellfire is unleashed. Don’t get me wrong, I own guns and like them. But the incredible fervor with which people defend the 2ndamendment should be channeled into defending their pocketbooks.

Why? Because it’s the free market economy that made America the financial and technological powerhouse that it is. The freedom to pursue whatever the hell you want to sets the conditions for creativity and exploration that this nation has benefitted from time and time again. Samuel Colt, Henry Ford, The Wright Brothers, Robert Goddard, Alexander Graham Bell, Jonas Salk…the list of inventors who maximized their potential in a country that allowed them to goes on and on.

Imagine if we had a government that took 75% of everything you made (and yes there are governments that do). Your creativity and ambition would die immediately. You’d never unleash your full potential on the world because all the fruits of your labor would just be confiscated.

The government should take enough to money to provide security and set the conditions for us to succeed (which includes education).A tax free society is a fable and in order to keep our position in the world we all have to give a little, but a government that takes a massive proportion of our wealth and redistributes it in the name of “economic stimulus spending” is really called socialism. How’s that working out for North Korea?

So if you really want to accuse the government of inherently un-American behavior, focus your watchful eyes on how much it’s taxing you and what it’s doing with your money. If people protected their wallets with as much enthusiasm as they protected their holsters we’d have more accountability, less waste, and ultimately more money to do whatever we want with…like buy more guns.

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“Good enough for government work” is supposed to be a joke, but when you work around government the sad, sobering reality is this is truth. There are several reasons for this phenomenon:

-It doesn’t have to be efficient or even good. The government is in no danger of going away so it doesn’t need people who are going to ensure its longevity.

-The government is not profit oriented so it doesn’t need creative, innovative people to find ways to make money. It’s not like a business that has to make money or everyone loses their job or a colony where everyone works their asses off to prevent cannibalism and death by hatchet. Without a life-or-death motive there’s no incentive to find ways to survive which stifles creativity. Any action taken is good enough. The impetus to produce or be fired is removed from the equation so they can be mediocre forever with no repercussions.

-Hiring standards are lower because you don’t have to prove that you’ve accomplished anything. You don’t have to show how effective you’ve been in the past like taking a startup business from zero to kajillions or launched an innovative campaign to make unicorns popular. You just have to show that you know how to breathe. And government background checks? Pencil drills that are easily manipulated.

-It’s nearly impossible to fire someone from government service. True story—a man in a government agency was streaming porn for 6 hours a day on a government computer but when his supervisor tried to fire him it took 6 months, a two-inch thick file of violations and hundreds of hours of legal counsel. Even then he still got a new job with a different government agency. When you know it’s nearly impossible to be fired and have no motivation to make serious change in an organization then it becomes too easy to resort to inherent human laziness. Government workers are wholly comfortable and have no reason to actually work.

-The government’s main job is to spend money or ensure that others are spending government funds. Any monkey can do that and yet wasteful spending practices surface all the time. The government’s business model is spend spend spend instead of make make make or be fired for not making.

Now I’m not going to say every government employee fits into this description and yes, our government does produce beneficial outcomes once in a while, but on the whole its standards for personnel are low and it doesn’t operate in an environment of kill or be killed (or even survival of the fittest) so it’s a lethargic organization of inefficiency and wastefulness. There’s no motivation to use your skills or to really do anything at all other than the bare minimum. Even then the chances of being terminated are slim, so the next time you hear someone say “it’s a government conspiracy” think about how inept our government truly is and you’ll realize it’s not capable of one. It just does what’s good enough for government work and nothing more.

I was dared to tip a cow in high school and because of peer pressure I jumped an electric fence, squared up like a linebacker and plowed into a slumbering beast, sending it sprawling to the ground. It was dumb and I could have not only hurt myself but the cow, which would have hurt some farmer’s livelihood.

As we get older and wiser we look back on those days and laugh but the memories are strewn with a little regret and a lot of embarrassment. We didn’t think it was wrong back then but know better now. At least we survived. We didn’t die or become permanently maimed which is more than many of today’s youth can brag. Nowadays teens take risks I wouldn’t dream of. It’s always the older generation’s right to criticize the youth as foolhardy but it seems this shit is truly getting ridiculous. The knockout game, Skywalking, and Bro Pranks are straight up idiotic.

Pushing the bounds of risk is something we do in our youth because we feel indestructible and don’t give a shit about the outcome. It angers our parents (which is part of the thrill sometimes), but the older I get the stupider these risks seem and I seriously wonder how dumb the kids today really are. The knockout game has no outcome but pain and suffering. Skywalking creates beautiful photos, but at incredible risk. One false step and you’re dead…for a picture. And Bro Pranks is about as stupid as stupid gets. These kids walk straight up to someone who can (and will) enact great violence on their ass and intentionally piss them off until they get beaten up.

What’s the need here? Sure we all do risky things but these games have a much higher chance of resulting in death than anything we ever did. Is it really worth risking life and limb for a thrill or is the overall IQ of today’s youth 40-50 points lower than previous generations? Maybe the technology is to blame. We didn’t have smart phones and cameras to record our stupidity, but young people today use them religiously. Is the ability to record everything and anything causing more pressure on kids to do something brazen or be called a chicken on youtube? Do today’s devices make the situation worse because kids want to be seen more than we ever did?

I believe in individual responsibility so if a kid decides to do something stupid and it takes his life then that’s his own fault. He knew the risks, took the chance, and failed. At least there will be one less idiot to talk my kids into doing it.

Indecisiveness is so unattractive. The inability to make a decision and then have the moral courage to see it through is a quality that sets a relationship on its head for curmudgeons like me. “Well I don’t know…what do you want to do?” is like kicking us in the nuts. We double over not from anguish, but from the realization that we wasted time hanging around a wet noodle and there are still people in the world who are born without a spine.

We want people to weigh their options, pick a course of action, and support it with confidence. A great leader is someone who’s confident in himself and his ability to recognize a situation and make a sound decision. Middle age brings experience to the table and the realization that we have learned one great truth of this world-there isn’t enough time left in our lives to pussyfoot around and wait until tomorrow to act.

Making a decision is a difficult thing for those without conviction. It could be as mundane as choosing between cereal and eggs for breakfast or as monumental as dropping an A Bomb on Japan, but whatever the outcome, pick a path and walk it with your head held high. Choosing not to make a decision is sometimes a viable option, but not really because it’s hard to stick with inaction and letting someone else decide by proxy leaves your fate in the hands of others. Who wants that?

Middle-agers have realized that a big part of defining your life lies in the choices you have to make with the best available information at your disposal. Go to college or go to work? Get married or stay single? Have kids or start a virtual farm? Stack cups or play a sport that requires you to wear one? Every decision opens one door and closes the opposing door, usually permanently. To oversimplify it, life is like a tree. For the first part of our lives, we all do the same thing-go to school. This is the trunk.

Then as you go on through life you choose one branch and go down it until a crossroads presents you with another decision. Which branch do you choose? The cycle repeats itself over and over again until we find ourselves on the end of a branch as a leaf waiting to fall back to the ground to decompose and be reclaimed by the earth. What part of the tree you end up in is in your hands. It could be high up basking in the sunlight, lost in the middle of the crowd, or on the low branches, decrepit and alone. Choose wisely.

Curmudgeonism: A Surly Man's Guide to Midlife

There’s little in life more irritating than someone who doesn’t have a proper perspective on life. Those fragile Pollyanna’s of emotion that get shaken by the most innocuous of things (like someone who pisses their pants over a simple confrontation with a co-worker) are sickening. What they think is significant, isn’t. There is a simple litmus test for perspective. When you think you’re getting wrapped around the axle over something that does or doesn’t matter, ask yourself six questions:

-Is anyone shooting at you?

-Do you have a terminal illness?

-Are you hopelessly addicted to anything?

-Are you homeless?

-Are you out of clean water?

-Are you starving?

If you can honestly answer no to all six questions then your life is better than 50% of the world. Suck it up and drive on. Quit your whining. It doesn’t make any sense to worry over the little things when there are so many big, life-threatening ones that demand our attention and life energy.

Curmudgeons like me have a fundamental belief that other people’s opinions are flawed or just don’t matter. You disapprove of me? Good for you. You’re just another douchebag who’s about as valuable as a condom machine in the Vatican. This isn’t high school where the quarterback can laugh at a nerd and have all his sycophant sheep haze him into social damnation. This is real life and your opinions of us mean nothing, which has freed us up to say the things we want to. Curmudgeons accept this as a general truth of life and use it as a basis for what many believe is a generally bad temperament. But in reality it means we don’t care about the people who don’t matter, which is also the law of 25%.

The Law of 25% says one fourth of any audience will disagree with you no matter how genius or virtuous you are. Don’t worry about them. Expect it and pay them no attention. Some people will reconsider their position if one single person disagrees with them. They haven’t learned to stand their ground and haven’t taken a moment in the shower to run a hand across his or her back and feel that thing called a spine. There will always be doubters but the true curmudgeon needs at least 25% dissonance before even thinking about changing his mind.

Example:

A man is watching a rugby game with 8 buddies and says, “that was a high tackle, he should be penalized” and 1-2 of them disagree (25% or less even by West Virginia math). At this point it’s generally accepted that he is correct and he needs not worry about the dissenting opinions. However, if 3-4 disagree (up to 50%) then he should keep an open mind on the situation. If 5-6 disagree then he should seriously reconsider his position and if 7-8 disagree he’s drunk.

A related theory is that 25% of the people we meet in life think we’re worthless and weak and nothing we do will change that perception. Some people make flash judgments that last forever. If you don’t impress them in the first minute of meeting then you’re screwed forever. They will write you off as less valuable than a screen door on a submarine and nothing you do will ever engender a full recovery. Along those same lines, there are some people who are easily impressed and will think you’re absolutely awesome no matter what even after 15 seconds of knowing them. Forget both types. Nothing you say or do will change their position and therefore they don’t matter. They are set in their opinions so it makes no sense to waste your time to try to change them. Keep a realistic perspective and move on. There are billions of people in this world so getting upset about one person’s opinion about you is insane.

Part of keeping a sound perspective on life is not being enamored with people who think they’re changing the world but aren’t. I’m talking about entertainers. Entertainers are just that…entertainers. Actors, musicians, and (to a lesser extent) athletes and authors are here for one purpose only: to entertain us.

There’s nothing wrong with dedicating your life to the arts and perfecting your craft and in some cases celebrities use their status for good and we applaud them for that. But they’re not to be worshipped or blindly followed as leaders or world changers. They’re not policymakers, scientists, doctors, pioneers, astronauts, generals, law enforcement, or have any real impact on anything other than providing us with a momentary escape from life. Without our dollars, they’d be on a subway street corner playing for handouts to spend on coffee to get the energy jolt they need to get up and do it again. Their commitment to their profession is laudable, but if a zombie apocalypse suddenly happened today they’d be bait.

A famous actress once said, “It’s only through movies that we learn who we are.” Nothing could be more hornswaggle bullshit. It’s through love, loss, pain, joy, birth, death, war, peace, adversity, embarrassment, failure, success, pushing your boundaries, honing your abilities, getting knocked down and getting back up again and telling the world, ‘you hit like a bitch’ that we learn who we are. An occasional motion picture will capture some of that experience, but it’s only a tiny fraction of the process of self-discovery. That’s life’s job, not Hollywood’s.

While we’re talking about entertainers, it’s a hard sell to feel an emotional outpouring for one (or anyone successful for that matter) when they succumb to drug addiction or other vice. These are people who actively seek a life that’s void of personal privacy and under constant scrutiny with easy access to a buffet of dangerous addictions run by ambitious and unscrupulous businessmen who give two fucks about their personal well being. When you’re paid millions of dollars to act on a stage or play a game and throw it all away for something so obscure that you should have seen coming, you’re just weak. Get some perspective and realize how good you have it.

Curmudgeonism: A Surly Man's Guide to Midlife

Microdrones are everywhere and it’s only a matter of time before drones become like smart phones. Everyone will have one because the need to know what’s going on at all hours of the day and night no matter what the distance is an all-consuming obsession with people. Just look at the internet and cell phones. What is the real purpose of these things? To acquire information as fast as possible (especially porn).

A drone does that. It can hover over anything and transmit visual and audio data back to the operator in real time. Want to stalk your ex? Buy a drone. Want to rob a house? Buy a drone. Want to make an anonymous cash drop to a hit man? Buy a drone. Everyone from jealous lovers to kidnappers to corporate espionage and law enforcement will use drones and what will all this drone activity lead to? The erosion of security. You won’t know when you’re being watched and when you’re not but you will always assume someone has a mosquito-sized drone buzzing around your house, so you will take measures to guard against it, like blacked out windows and transmission jammers so the signal can’t make it back to the operator.

So now is the time to invest in a drone-busting company that will someday invent a radar-based device that detects and shoots down any drone that breaches your property. Of course version 1 will also shoot down every bird in the neighborhood, but versions 2 and 3 will probably get it right with EMP blasts or inescapable deployable nets that capture the drone and make it yours. It will be expensive, but that’s the price of security and security is really what we need for a prosperous society. Deep down we all need the security of knowing that we can drive across a bridge without it collapsing or walk down to the local Stop ‘N Rob convenience store to buy a Mountain Dew without being shot at or spied on, so we will pay any price to ensure that security.

What else should you invest in? Cutting edge rocket propulsion and long-range space travel. Lately I’ve been reading scientific journals (and let’s be fair…watching How the Universe Works) and I’m convinced we will find a new earth to call home in the next 20 years. Advancements in telescope technology and the methods for identifying new planets with atmospheres has already resulted in many candidates so it’s just a matter of time until Earth 2 is identified. But what then? We’ll have our new Terra Firma but no way to get there and everyone will make a predictable demand to get long-range propulsion technologies good enough to get us there. Cryonics and Stasis Habitats will be all the rage (and recipients of your tax dollars).

Technology usually makes our lives better but it also has a strange way of balancing out the gene pool. Think about this…someday our craving to know everything in real time will combine with the creative geniuses of capitalism and we’ll all be wearing computers on our face. Microtechnologies will make it possible to put an entire laptop into the same space as a pair of sunglasses and Oakley will be king of the hill (or Google if they can get their crap together). We’ll be able to text, email, watch the news, and of course surf porn while walking and driving. That will lead to more pedestrian and automobile accidents caused by ADD horn dogs jerking off in the driver’s seat. Darwinism will claim more idiots and the universe will be balanced. Thank you nerds.

Curmudgeonism: A Surly Man's Guide to Midlife

A curmudgeon’s bitch trigger is quicker than an actor’s relapse, so what’s the determining factor between unleashing the wrath and bottling it up to release it on some other poor sap? Whether or not you respect the target.

One day you’re cruising through the office and see Dave not wearing a tie despite your boss insisting that everyone wears a tie every day. Before erupting on Dave, ask yourself a few questions: Is Dave a good guy who works hard, doesn’t complain, and distills his own bourbon? Did Dave strike out on his own to start a business and put everything into it only to have it fail because of something out of his control? Did he put his life on the line to stop a gang attack on a helpless old lady or carry a fallen comrade over miles of enemy desert to safety?

Then there’s a new variable in the equation: respect. Us curmudgeons can stomach a slight apparel indiscretion committed by a respectable person and would probably let this go. On the other hand, is Dave a lazy kiss ass who falls asleep on the job and claims someone else’s work as his own when he finally wakes up? The curmudgeon needs a volunteer for waterboarding training and Dave is it.

Respect can’t be bought or forced, but that doesn’t stop the entertainment industry from trying to purchase yours. The media likes to build respect and/or an emotional connection by sensationalizing a backstory and to be honest it gets old.

Take any televised talent show like The X Factor or American Idol. The contestants with great voices are truly talented: but the ones with mediocre voices who have overcome some sort of adversity in their lives get so much more respect from the fans, because the editors spend a lot of time building up their connection to the audience through sympathy.

A terminally ill kid in San Francisco wants to dress up like Batman and get a key to the city from the mayor and the entire city shows up, but if I put in a request for myself maybe my favorite delivery boy from Papa John’s would be there, but that’s it. Why? I’m healthy. I’m normal. I don’t have anything in my life that would make you empathize or respect me. That’s just the way it is in American entertainment.

Maybe this isn’t a bad thing though. Maybe the internet has brought so many “you won’t believe what this kid went through” stories that it’s become common and we’ve stopped singling out people for being born with a disability or surviving a traumatic event. Maybe that’s helping us accept everyone no matter what or who they are. Maybe this shows that people actually have compassion for those who have overcome an adversity more so than those who haven’t.

But maybe it’s also making us a culture where there’s just no respect in being healthy or free of massive life-altering obstacles. I’ve worked my ass off to afford my family a stable, worry free life, but now I think my kids are fucked because of it. Children like mine who are raised in a healthy, happy, stable home don’t have a great story of triumph to tell and will be put in the back of the respect line because of it. Should I get divorced so they have a reason to go to therapy or have something to cry about at parties?

The media floods us with these feel good stories of resilient people who beat the odds so much that I want to drop my kids off in the woods a hundred miles from home and say “find your way back” so they have some sappy story to cry about. But I’d probably be arrested for child endangerment and I ain’t going back to prison, Lieutenant Hanna.

Curmudgeonism: A Surly Man's Guide to Midlife

People who expect the world will ever be a peaceful place are living in denial and don’t understand that there will always be aggressive people who will resort to violence to get what they want from something tiny like a piece of candy to the entire European continent (remember Hitler?).

You can’t breed aggression out of humans or use internet activism to wish it away. There are people who like to fight and even gain enjoyment from it. Always has been and always will be. The best thing you can do is prepare for it.

But the bigger issue here is denial in the face of overwhelming fact. There’s the world we want to live in and the one we actually DO live in.

Illegal immigrants are here. Millions of them. Accept it instead of wishing them away. If you want them to go away, make them citizens, create an Alien Tax and set it at 50%. They’ll leave lickety split.

Drugs are here to stay whether you like it or not. Legalize it, isolate it, control it, and tax it. Drug violence will disappear and the government will be wealthy again.

The NFL will never export itself successfully outside the US borders. Quit trying.

This acceptance works two ways. I hate lazy people but as much as I rant about them they never seem to change. They’re always there…wasting oxygen in my line of sight.

So maybe it’s unrealistic for me to think that we can prod or motivate these people to get off of welfare and work. Maybe laziness is like any other human characteristic and just needs to be accepted, isolated, and avoided.

But then everyone would call you prejudiced. And that would make you angry enough to resort to violence.

You can’t win.

Curmudgeonism: A Surly Man's Guide to Midlife

As a shareholder in Ranger Up for 5 years now, I get a perk. I’m allowed free t-shirts and in the old days I would take advantage of this perk and have a box sent to my house every few months.

But then things changed. I started my own company and realized what a douche move that was.

As a business owner you learn very quickly that everyone wants something and does everything they can to take advantage of you. At first you treat them with a smile and a sincere “I’ll get right on that,” but then they push you for more and you find yourself spending half your day doing way too much free work. People know they’re taking advantage of you, but they don’t stop. They just want more and before long you become jaded on people.

My contempt towards my fellow man got bad enough that it spawned a book, but that’s a different story. I’m not here to whine about how cruel the world is, but instead to caution you that if you go into business for yourself, be prepared to lose all your faith in humanity. You will see its seedy underbelly and discover that people will do everything they can to disappoint you.

Everyone has advice for the shiny-eyed, hopeful entrepreneur. “Be sure to do this” they say “And be sure to do that.” What they don’t tell you (or keep to themselves for some sadistic reason) is that when you own and operate your own company you get to see the worst in people. Everybody, and I mean everybody, wants something from you.

First, your “fellow businessmen” want you to do all the work while they take all the reward and will straight up lie to your face to accomplish this. “Your business and mine are so synergistic!” they’ll say with feigned enthusiasm. “If we work together we’ll make a kajillion dollars.” These people are either idiots, lying, or are angling to enter a relationship where they sit on a barca lounger collecting an unfair amount of profit while you blow through all your resources and do all the work.

Sure there are some businesses that work well together, but this is an exception rather than a rule. While you’re trying to minimize cost and maximize profit, he’s trying to do the same no matter how badly it cuts your bottom line. Just remember that everyone has an agenda and a pot of money and they all want to accomplish THEIR agenda with YOUR pot of money. Unless another company has an absolute water tight, pornstar fit with yours that’s fair for both, walk away.

Secondly, your clients and / or customers will continually to cut the profit margins out from under you or try to get you to give them something for free no matter how badly it hurts your operations. You can explain business 101 to them all day but in the end they just want you to bend over and take one for the team and will go to any length to make you feel like you should have bent even more. Having a hardline stance of “no freebies ever” is the only way to avoid getting raped by unscrupulous toads. Being nice has to have a limit.

Almost every business employs a lawyer in some form or another. Your lawyers will say, “We charge $350 an hour, but we won’t nickel and dime you to death or we’ll put a paralegal on your actions so it’s cheaper,” but then you get the monthly bill and see a $62 charge for 15 minutes of a full partner’s time to answer an email. Besides being a scam to bill you into bankruptcy, what email takes 15 minutes to answer? I don’t remember asking for 6 paragraphs on the leading “Where is Jimmy Hoffa buried?” theories. Don’t…and I mean DON’T…use lawyers unless you absolutely have to.

I had great shareholders who never got on my ass about how I was making them more money, but I’ve heard of some pretty horrific ones who always want to see positive numbers or they unleash a barrage of negativity that makes you wonder why you brought them into the company in the first place. If you admit investors into the picture, only do it when it’s absolutely necessary and don’t bring in a dick.

Running a business is one thing. Dealing with people is another. You can be the smartest businessman in the world, but if you’re not prepared to deal with all the shitty people you’ll meet, don’t bother raising a single penny of venture capital. The capitalists of the world will tell you it takes the right attitude to be an entrepreneur and they’re right. It also takes the right temperament.

As for those free boxes of RU shirts? I insist on buying my own now.

Curmudgeonism: A Surly Man's Guide to Midlife

Think you’re owed happiness? You’re not. Happiness is a luxury, not a necessity. Some say “if you’re not happy doing what you’re doing then don’t do it.” Those people are surprisingly more comfortable with a welfare Christmas and a moped than the average person. It’s idealistic, but many times unrealistic and as we’ve learned already, idealism has a cost.

The definition of happiness is different for everyone but one thing is for sure-it’s fleeting. Just when you think you’re on the verge of a touchdown, the goal line moves. The variables change and suddenly you’re on a quest to make it to the next level of happiness. Even then, you can accomplish your mission in life and buy a nice house, nice cars, and a baby giraffe and feel happy but then you realize you have to protect it. You have everything you wanted and a life that’s enviable. That means you have to maintain it. You have to keep it going. That adds pressure and makes you unhappy again. It’s a vicious cycle.

The universe does not owe anyone a single atom of happiness and there’s no law that says you have to love your chosen profession. As long as a job provides income and necessities for the family then it can suck badger milk because true happiness for a man comes from being a provider. It’s our responsibility to take care of our kin and we want to fulfill that responsibility no matter how happy or unhappy it makes us. Curmudgeons sacrifice the happiness of the self for the needs of the family because we’re not egotistical or narcissistic.

Some Deepak Chopra Zen master schmuck will tell you that you have to be happy in life or that you should continually strive to find greater levels of happiness. That works for some, but if you’re a family man then you have the responsibility to provide for those you love and that's it. If you're not happy but you’re providing a good life then suck it up, cupcake.
My soul dies a little each day at work, but I provide a comfortable living for my family therefore I will be its punching bag and shut up and take it. Some days I hate what I’ve become but then I step through the doors of my house and it’s all washed away. Coming home from a day on the job is like finishing a hard ass gym workout. It sucked, but in the end it’s satisfying to know my sacrifice had a purpose and my good health means I will live to work another day and my family will be good to go a little longer. Men are wired to provide, even if it’s just for ourselves, and when anything threatens our ability to do that we freak out just a little bit.

On the grand scale of things happiness is a want, not a need. We need to provide. We want to be happy but if we're not happy, but we're providing then that's a form of happiness in itself or at the very least a form of satisfaction. I may not fit some liberal’s view of happy but I’m content and that’s good enough for me. Don’t agree? Quit your crappy job just to spite me. It’s not easy is it? Show me a job that pays as much as I'm making now that I can enjoy and then I'll listen to your "don't work in a job you hate" argument. Otherwise leave me alone. I have a family to provide for.

Curmudgeonism: A Surly Man's Guide to Midlife