I really can't complain...

One of the grand achievements of consumer culture is the dissatisfied shopper, the one who gets really upset, the one who demands the money back, the one that gets her or his way, the one that walks away with a fixed new item, a brand new something. Or money back. Money back is also very popular among some. One complains long enough and back comes the money, the same money that was in the wallet before... it just returns. (In most cases it comes back sans the shipping and handling and the interest accumulated on the credit card and we do not even want to start about the hours or days or weeks spent on the actual process of complaining....)
I can't complain. I am not really good at it. I was not taught how to complain properly, I love to suffer, I guess, just wait and see and look for the solution... passively... actively, certainly (or I could pray, or wish, or hope.)

So when my new PowerBook arrived with one little pixel screaming at me with all its brightness, I went to some site where I found the manual for Apple technicians, found the story about dead pixels, found out that I would need to have at least three of those bright ones, or four of those dark ones in order to get an exchange... and so I did not say anything... I sometimes place the pointer of my mouse under the dead pixel, then it looks as if it had a green, glowing eye... we talk... it is sort of fun.
I read an article today about a new petition regarding an apparent flaw in the display of my PowerBook. I checked, I have it, indeed... I am not one of the 650 people who signed that thing so far, I see some white blotches, yes, but I am going to wait right now, not go crazy about something that really would not make me smarter or more handsome, or live longer if it were fixed. (Actually, worrying about this stuff, could quite possibly shave off a few days of my probably pretty short life.)
Complaining is a really nice new way of self expression. Some cranky "experts" just lustfully jumped on some of the new features of the new mac operating system, some write as if they were really, physically aroused when they can complain about some practices by companies like google. Others are truly, deeply upset that some fonts do not ship with some free software...
I am just really glad that I am alive tonight...
There must be a bit of a misunderstanding here, some of us believe that pointing out of issues is a great way to stimulate progress.
Large discussion groups emerge, hundreds of users enjoy the brilliant observation skills of the complainer.
Complaining feels a little anti productive to me... it does not appear to be a really creative process... and it is really not to be confused with constructive criticism which is actually something really good...
It is a bit like lamenting about a blown out candle, pointing out that it smells and does not illuminate the room, or that the room now disappeared, or that the moths have nowhere to fly...
Or one could just light the candle again... or just a match or something...
Silly, simplistic thought, perhaps?...
Is complaining the great power of the consumer?... Is the role of the complainer the same one that used to be one of the court jester, perhaps?...
I have this slight beginning of a feeling that complaining about things and their flaws is the direct response to what expectations are packed into the now more expensive toys we call products...
We tend to buy fantasies that surround a product, the actual item is then just a material representation of the expectation... anything that does not comply with the promise... is obviously a large disappointment... to the one who really believes the promises in the first place.
I guess I am still too much of the boy who was very amazed about the possibilities of a piece of paper, or a plastic cup, or plasticine. I did not grow up in a world that promised me that I would be able to draw like Leonardo if only on the right sheet of paper, or that the water would be the most delicious if drunk from this or that particular glass, or that the clay would turn into art in my hands, if only purchased in that bright and pretty special pack.
Most of my toys could probably be considered rubbish, or dangerous, or maybe both. I played with knifes, with caps of bottles, with dirt, with dirty snow... None of these items came with some predetermined world, stories, instructions, a sales pitch, which could annoy me, or just bore me... I had to turn the bottle cap into a racer on a track I drew into the dirt with my left shoe. That knife was not really dangerous because I knew that pointing it at myself could injure me badly, of course...
My job as a child was to "inform", to "transform" things, anything really, and to thus turn it into something that was as complex as my imagination.

I remember coming to the west and discovering that the packaging of toys was the best thing about them. The promises printed on the outside of the colorful boxes were really rarely kept... and they also were a but like panic flaps put onto a horse. Even lego was pretty disgusting in the west, the packaging contained pictures and predetermined outcomes of maybe three stories per package... this was all really disappointing...
So I can understand quite well, why anybody who was born into a world that tends to bombard us with legally backed up promisses would focus as much as possible at the disappointing flaws of things... It really is a bit of a creative process, a breaking beyond what the manufacturer wants us to see...

Though wouldn't it be really beautiful if we all somehow had that power to invent new things and ideas and just charge forward and explode into the world as a burst of completely new ways of looking at the silliest little things?...
(rather than believing dome marketing pitches, and then whining that the promises were not completely kept?)
How great would it be if we managed to just take the energy of the blessings we encounter by the million every day and just ride it into the next unscripted day?...
This is not very fashionable... sarcasm and irony are the king and queen of the contemporary thinker...
Hmm... how odd that this little entry could almost be read as a complaint...
; )

Btw. I am still amazed that this piece of software here checks my spelling on the fly no matter if I write in English, oder ob ich mal schnell was auf Deutsch schreibe, albo nawet po Polsku, (obwohl ich mir da nicht so sicher bin...)
Amazing... I find it all amazing...
I am stunned by the tiniest of things...
I can't complain... we are so darn lucky to have what we have. So darn lucky... and I sometimes have to pinch myself, because I must be dreaming...
this all goes far beyond my boyish imagination...