JustAsking
Sexy Member
I think the secret might be to develop the skill of not worrying about things you can't control before you get too old. This is especially true about those things you thought you needed to control for ego purposes.
Were these guys crotchety young men?
Crotchety - meaning a cranky, ill-tempered, sour, and crusty person.
If they weren't always that way what made them so bitter. I'm trying my damndest to avoid that road to curmudgeonville but I can see it coming sometimes.
Help.
I've had a goal all my life that I did not want to be a nasty, old fart when I got older. Well, it seems that I got my wish. At 56 1/2 as of today, I have to say that I'm a very positive, upbeat guy. I'm friendly, outgoing, and usually the first to smile when I make eye contact with people. I've been reasonably fanatical about what I eat since my early 20s. I'm physically active - just rode the Rosarito to Ensenada 50 mile bike ride last Saturday. I like current music as well as the older stuff. I have 2 friends that I've known for 25 - 30 years and all they want to do is sit around and drink beer and smoke pot. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a prude. A little partying is okay, but you have to balance it out with some serious exercise. When I meet other people my age I feel blessed to be me.
We actually learned a little bit about this in Psychology class... as a person gets older, their crystallized learning grows, while their fluid learning decreases... which basically means, they are still capable of learning new concrete facts. But, they lose the ability (or the ability at least gets a lot slower) to make new decisions or to learn how to do things a new way. So, because learning new ideas takes so much time for them and is so difficult, they just base their thoughts and ideas and activities on previous behaviors and experiences from their life. It's actually a neurological thing that happens in their brains as neurons start dying. Kinda neat.
Crotchetyness, I think, is a relative term, defined by one's own opinion of the person in question and whether one agrees or disagrees with that person's outlook. If one agrees with another's point of view on a subject for example, that person seems less "crotchety". it's all a matter of perspective.
Take for example certain members and ex-members here (who shall go unnamed) who seem over time to have garnered a certain following and adulation for their "crotchetyness" not to metion their particular ability to pounce (with spew and venom) upon someone with whom they disagree .
Some seem to fairly delight in it. Is it because we agree with their position, because we find entertainment in their "drive by shittings" and in the way they lampoon their intended victim? Are they not crotchety? Or are they rather "astute", "opinionated", and "perspicacious" in their "wit"? Where does one begin and the other end?
*********************************************************Were these guys crotchety young men?
Crotchety - meaning a cranky, ill-tempered, sour, and crusty person.
If they weren't always that way what made them so bitter. I'm trying my damndest to avoid that road to curmudgeonville but I can see it coming sometimes.
Help.
I find exercise make me less crotchety also. Make my feel mentally better when my body is feeling good too. Wonder if there is a body-mind link here, sdbg. It's funny when you picture these guys they always have a stilted walk, short steps, hunched over, frail, usually walking with a cane, and a frown on their faces. They certainly are not the picture of health. I never think of an athletic person as crotchety. Interesting.
He was the first one I thought of when I saw the word crotchety :biggrin1:A good question for the recently departed curmudgeon who named a website after himself.
No, I don't. I think you should see a therapist and get some meds. Do I think anti-depressants will get you laid and solve all your problems? No, but I'd bet my Frye boots you have a chemical imbalance which has not allowed you to be happy for quite a while. It's clear to me and many others that you are suffereing from a severe case of major depression.Maybe that's the problem. I have never done drugs or been drunk. I've never had sex either. (Unless masturbation counts). Maybe I should go to the liquor store, the local "house of ill repute" (that's probably the only way), and the local drug dealer. Maybe that WOULD help. Think I should try that???
No, I don't. I think you should see a therapist and get some meds. Do I think anti-depressants will get you laid and solve all your problems? No, but I'd bet my Frye boots you have a chemical imbalance which has not allowed you to be happy for quite a while. It's clear to me and many others that you are suffereing from a severe case of major depression.
Ultimately, how you view life is pure perception. I have known people who are beat up by life more than any human should be, and yet they are still happy, upbeat positive people. I have known others who have been given gifts of beauty, health, wealth, success, popularity, luck, and admiration and constant accolades--and they have been unhappy and totally miserable. We ALL actively choose how we feel, even if we don;t realize it. NOBODY can make you happy. NOBODY can make you miserable, either. They can contribute to either condition, but how you handle their influence dictates whether you are happy or unhappy.
If you are miserable, unless there is a chemical reason, you can choose, actively, and FORCE yourself to think positive thoughts. YOu don;t have to believe them at that time, but you have to FORCE yourself to think them. Eventually, you will literally wear new groves into your brain, that the neural patterns will fall in. You just have to wear them deeper than the old patterns. Everything in the universe, including thoughts, follows the path of least resistance. The key is exerting enough energy to force new patterns, which become the path of least resistance.
I was being sarcastic. I know booze, drugs, and sex won't improve one's life.
If I thought it would have I'd have tried it years ago.
I don't think I've ever been happy, but the older we get the worse everything gets.
In my case, I would say it is the failure of all my lifelong dreams and goals. My life isn;t actually all that bad--I have a good job, that is meaningful, and contributes to society (I like to believe so, anyway). I spend a lot of effort trying to help others, and give of myself whenever possible. I make a decent enough living that I can live comfortably, if not richly--I have enough to eat, a roof over my head, clothes to wear, a car to drive. I have family that love me, who I love, even if not all accept me. I don't get to see them much--it has been at least 10 years since we have all gotten together, and that song since I have gotten to see some of them. But we love each other.
I have had people who actually chose to be in relationships with me, several of them quite long term, so I know that it is possible to love and be loved, even if it is not perfect, and doesn't last.
I still hope, and believe that life can be better than it is. I still believe that people can be better than they are. I suspect most curmudgeons are motivated the same way---people who wanted or expected more from life than they got, and became bitter about it to a greater or lesser extent. I am the worst combination---an idealist and a realist. I think and believe and hope that the world should be better than it is, but I have never been any good at lying to myself about what I see.
Ultimately, how you view life is pure perception. I have known people who are beat up by life more than any human should be, and yet they are still happy, upbeat positive people. I have known others who have been given gifts of beauty, health, wealth, success, popularity, luck, and admiration and constant accolades--and they have been unhappy and totally miserable. We ALL actively choose how we feel, even if we don;t realize it. NOBODY can make you happy. NOBODY can make you miserable, either. They can contribute to either condition, but how you handle their influence dictates whether you are happy or unhappy.
If you are miserable, unless there is a chemical reason, you can choose, actively, and FORCE yourself to think positive thoughts. YOu don;t have to believe them at that time, but you have to FORCE yourself to think them. Eventually, you will literally wear new groves into your brain, that the neural patterns will fall in. You just have to wear them deeper than the old patterns. Everything in the universe, including thoughts, follows the path of least resistance. The key is exerting enough energy to force new patterns, which become the path of least resistance.
Were these guys crotchety young men?
Crotchety - meaning a cranky, ill-tempered, sour, and crusty person.
If they weren't always that way what made them so bitter. I'm trying my damndest to avoid that road to curmudgeonville but I can see it coming sometimes.
Help.
I feel that I'm well on my way sometimes.
I used to be very nice when I was a teenager, I still am sometimes. When I was seven or eight years old I remember my mother lamenting that I was too young to be a cynic, so maybe I've always carried the crotchety gene.
You were the kid sitting on the porch, shaking his fist and yelling "get off my lawn?" :biggrin1:
No, but I always had a very dry, sarcastic, sometimes biting wit. Even when I was seven.
. I don't think a pessimist could be crotchety. A pessimist would expect the worst of everyone and everything, and therefore when it comes about there'd be no surprise.
.
We actually learned a little bit about this in Psychology class... as a person gets older, their crystallized learning grows, while their fluid learning decreases... which basically means, they are still capable of learning new concrete facts. But, they lose the ability (or the ability at least gets a lot slower) to make new decisions or to learn how to do things a new way. So, because learning new ideas takes so much time for them and is so difficult, they just base their thoughts and ideas and activities on previous behaviors and experiences from their life. It's actually a neurological thing that happens in their brains as neurons start dying. Kinda neat.
Bitterness results from the "agony of defeat" in life. Those who cannot see the bright side of life, the good in any person, hope for the future.
Having been through my own school of hard knocks, I know how easy it is to allow pessimism to fester until it becomes a way of life. Learning to accept the rough areas in life, the heartbreak, frustration and anger made the good times all the more precious to me. Unfortunately some people choose to see that the difficult times made the good ones less so. I refuse to do that; it cheapens every potentially good experience and would make me the curmudgeon i've insisted I would never become
Life is hard but it is also full of beauty. Appreciating both is key to survival in my book.
I think the secret might be to develop the skill of not worrying about things you can't control before you get too old. This is especially true about those things you thought you needed to control for ego purposes.
Perfectionists are hard to please people. How many crotchet old persons are perfectionists? Or perfectionists have nothing to do with it?
I think the old and crotchety are pessimistic and have always been. I think an optimist is less likely to become old and crotchety. I think miserable young people grow up to be miserable old people.
None of the "Crotchety" old men and women that I have met are perfectionists, they are just angry individuals who feel they have been cheated in life. My gut feeling is that they have never experienced the most basic of human needs, love.