I address this only to those capable of understanding. To steal a philosophy. And I’ll say up front that I’m a grumpy old man, and proud of it. Nothing wrong with being grumpy. But just to deconstruct that throwaway line, I think there are three very telling interpretations of those three words in the description. And what if you don’t like me pausing here to think about that, and explain, then you’re probably not going to enjoy what follows, and my musings maybe aren’t for you. You see, I like to digress, and also to consider language, how we use and interpret it, and what seemingly innocuous language might mean to different people. If you’re concerned that this might mean I’m one of those authors who feels the need to add ‘trigger warnings’, to avoid controversial subjects, or to unquestioningly follow contemporary conventions and sensibilities just for the sake of it, then you needn’t worry. I should also open by saying that if you take offence at swearing, rudeness, or being challenged, then you may as well fuck off right now. You won’t like this.
So, why is my three word description of myself telling? Firstly, being grumpy is frequently misunderstood. It doesn’t mean I’m a curmudgeon, and I wouldn’t categorise myself as in any way bad-tempered or dissatisfied with my lot. What is does mean is that I’m unlikely to accept things at face value, and like to examine everything from multiple facets, which necessarily means finding the negative as well as the positive. I think I’m relatively self-aware, and one of my many flaws is that I will often look for the downside to events and choices, and won’t outwardly acknowledge success as much as I should, particularly my own. That doesn’t mean that I am personally negative, but that I search for approaches to improvement at all times. If something I’ve done is effective or works, then I don’t tend to dwell beyond a personal satisfaction that I’ve achieved an objective, and will reflect instead on how improvements can be made in the future. When this tendency is applied to external factors or people (or I forget to rein it in), I can appear overly negative, which is something I try to work on, but can make me appear to be putting a downer on people and situations, when that is the farthest from my intentions. So, I embrace my grumpiness as a descriptor and label. And labels seem to be so important to society these days. More on that later. My second descriptor, with my tongue a little in my cheek, is old. I’m 52. In the grand scheme of things, that isn’t a great age, and I think technically still squeezes into the middle-aged bracket. But everything can be viewed from numerous perspectives. My father died at fifty-two, so if we’re judging against comparators, I would certainly be in the latter part of my genetic heritage. I’ve also had a stroke and cancer, suffered panic attacks since childhood, get stressed too easily, so am in all likelihood in the third trimester of my life. Though having said that, my poetic soul and posturing means I’ve been expecting to be imminently dead for about thirty years, and as each milestone passes I’ve had to access I’m not going to have a romantic early death at twenty-one, thirty-one, forty-one, or fifty-one. In fact, I’ll probably outlive you. Soz. No, my determination as ‘old’ isn’t drawn from biology or chronology so much as from a state of mind. It is a cliché that people become more right-wing with age, and I certainly wouldn’t put myself anywhere near that end of the political or philosophical spectrum if I was to get drawn into that polarising debate, but another cliché that I think rings far truer is that with age, most people tend to lose some of the idealism and hope, mainly through experiences of the world and society, and through the inevitable disappointments that pepper life. We learn that we aren’t immortal, that people aren’t always reasonable, logical, or well-behaved, and that the same problems face humankind now that have always been there. The rose-tinted glasses start to mist and grey, and there comes a point when we hit the realisation that we are on our own, and have to make our own decisions, frequently without sufficient information or wisdom to make an informed choice. Some people reach that stage sooner than others, but I’ve certainly reached that ‘mentally old’ stage where, although I can remember the beliefs and hope of my youth, I no longer embrace them without question. Also, while fifty-two may be no great age, it does mean I have fifty-odd years of experience to draw on. So, I’m happy to call myself ‘old’. The third may be obvious (or not these days) but I am a man. My lived experience is of being a man. That naturally tempers my initial understanding and reaction to the world, of course it does, but the viewpoint that this means I can’t see things from alternate viewpoints is frankly bollocks. It is my starting point. Because it is who I am. That doesn’t mean I can’t have opinions, a useful viewpoint, or insight into issues relating to ‘non-men’. So that is my starting point. Grumpy Old Man. I know there are other labels that I could pick, or that others no doubt ascribe to me, correctly or incorrectly, but this is my narrative, and I don’t care about any other label at this point in time. Labels are just something you stick on things to make them generically identifiable. They are rarely entirely accurate, comprehensive, or immutable. And often misleading or unhelpful.
Stay safe,
Kit x