I don’t want to write. I don’t want to write. I don’t. I don’t. I don’t. Whaaaaaaaaaaaa!
I remember a short conversation with another bleary-eyed father about the purpose of whining. His answer:
“There is no reason to let your kids whine. It will never serve them. There is no effect other than repulsion. They must stop.”
Whining must be evil.
“Quit whining!” is commanded so emphatically and with unwavering uniformity it must be true: whining is evil. It’s undisputed. Just compare. While a vast majority of people who emphatically demand of humanity to “quit killing,” there are plenty of people willing to argue “more killing.”
Nobody ever says, “more whining.”
Yet more people whine than kill. Isn’t that weird?
Why we whine, anyway.
It’s true that whining is directly linked to killing, so why do we whine at the risk of being killed?
A little research reveals a tempting list of possibilities. Apparently whining, or “futile complaining,” may have some benefits.
- Whining can bond us to others with similar complaints.
- Whining can be the first step to release locked up grief.
- Whining may even help us recognize danger. (Like we’re about to be killed.)
Psychologist Shawn T. Smith deftly unpacks Professor of Psychology Robin Kowalski’s paper, Whining, griping, and complaining: Positivity in the negativity, stating,
“Human minds are expert at creating expectations, standards, and presumptions for all manner of things beyond their control. … Futile complaining reduces discomfort by reducing the discrepancy between reality and a person’s [unrealistic] standards.”
Granted, there are people who can’t stop whining, compulsively, repulsively. Theirs is a different story than most of ours. For us infrequent whiners I see the act as one of those emotional signals that contains a message we might hear without cringing— too much.
Whining boils down to the feeling, I really wanted things to be different.
And that is the seed of our revelation.
Whining won.
I actually love to write, but the reality I’m reconciling is that I can’t do as much as I have in the last 18 months. My ass hurts. It’s telling me, get off it and move about.
So I’m cutting back to half time. You’ll be hearing from me less, about once a week— for a while.
I need to smell and feel more of this glorious spring.
NOTE: I know I employed various logical fallacies throughout this short essay. If you don’t think they’re funny, that’s okay. Writing them totally cracked me up, and I quit whining.
Very interesting post, thank you! I think I may need to take this as permission to do at least a little bit of whining. I’m in a somewhat unique situation in that I have 2 mentally ill brothers who seem to have perfected perpetual whining. And so I’ve been conditioned, I think, to never whine, because they do more than enough for the planet. Seriously. I can’t bear it and it’s even more excruciating that my very Italian mother caters to their every whine, no matter how demanding, insane, or ridiculous. Its quite amazingly bizarre and I keep wondering if I should write a book about all of this – the story would be a very similar to the one told by the documentary “Crumb”, in fact. But I digress. The point is, I find whining to be so completely off limits, I think due to my unique experiences. And so maybe I should try to think it is ok to do it just a little bit, when appropriate….
Hi Catherine, It’s really hard to know when whining actually helps. Kowalski’s paper talks a lot about the risks involved, but it seems your brothers have found a willing participant. Good for them, maybe!
Start a blog under a pseudonym and whine away there. Whine about whiners! You’re hilarious. Your whining would be so entertaining, and like it can for people PTSD, it could also relieve you of some of the grief of your crappy family life.
Most of Kowalski’s book is about complaining. I spent a good chunk of time looking for David Weissman’s short film called Complaints set to a spunky piano accompaniment. It’s very good.
Thank you! And great advice, as always. Yes, as a matter of fact, I do have a blog that I don’t really make public for fear that family members would read it and hunt me down. But that’s exactly it’s purpose – it is the place where I let it all out. And it seems safe because I don’t think anybody reads it! But there is something very healing about just getting it all out there, even if I have no audience. Just the act of writing somehow gets it out of me, so that it’s no longer stewing around in my head – it’s out and it’s gone, and then I can go about my merry way. Maybe that’s the good part of whining? Will check out the book & film you mentioned, sounds interesting….
I like the idea of a pseudonym blog. Perhaps I might transfer my current blog to a pseudonym and continue on with it… not sure if that is possible but will investigate.
Thank you!
I wrote a post a while back about why making excuses/ listening to excuses is OK (in moderation). People always say “no excuses!” or “I don’t wana hear your excuse!” but, sometimes, if you listen to an excuse it usually reveals something pretty important if you pay attention. The same is true for whining.
Great post!
Thanks Denise, your link please.
The problem is that the costs of whining are so high, most of the time! Now affective listening to whining, that’s truly an art.
Oh! Whining IS a sign that we want something to be different, isn’t it? Huh. It’s amazing how drastic a mindset shift can come from such a little grouping of words. Thank you!
One of my friends recently told a few of us, after we spent a few minutes complaining about the problems we were facing at work:
“There is no problem so horrible that it can’t be made worse by whining about it”
I find whining a good excuse to laugh and move on to the next thing.