Category: Postcard Snippets

Feeling very grumpy today! Postcard # 33 and nothing to write about. It has been said that the first writing is always autobiographical, well I’m 40,000 words in since Postcard # 1 on Sept 09, 2022, and not a thing to say, long life or otherwise.

I turned to Ernest Hemingway for guidance:

Well, that just made me grumpy and depressed! I’m 61 Earnest, how much more living do I need to do? Off course this maxim was Ernest’s excuse for running around the world. Working as an ambulance driving medic in the 1936 Spanish Civil War, getting ahead of General Patton’s advance in WW2 whilst capturing German held towns, slaughtering African wildlife, walking away from crashed planes and killing really big fish. If only someone told him that was the Bi-Polar acting, not the search for something to write about.

Ernest and Grumpy Disruption.

Ernest disrupted the world with his no nonsense writing, but seriously Earnest, a little more positivity might sweeten the fact that my writing is well, stalled!

Ernest gave me some direction, “Put on paper what I see, do it simply“. I think I’ve done that, but it only filled 21 crappy Post Cards!

Think you’re Grumpy, ask your partner.

Then I discussed this with my wife Lizzie, who instantly confirmed: “Write about grumpiness and cynicism, you’re a master on those subjects!” So now I was grumpy, depressed, and confronting the awareness of how shallow and transparent I obviously am!

The very young Hemingway inspired me to write about grumpiness: Lizzie was spot on as grumpiness is something I truly know and care about.

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.’ So finally, I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say.”

Ernest Hemingway. ‘A Moveable Feast’, 1964.

So, there you go, perhaps not one ‘True Sentence’ but since ponderously, prevaricatingly starting this Postcard I’ve written 300 words, much ado about nothing much!

So, does grumpiness have a cause? Did the ancient Greek plays of the propagandist Pericles feature Grumpy Old Men? Do external events make me grumpy? Is there a cure for grumpiness?

What is Grumpiness?

In the world of psychology and mental health, there’s no technical definition or criteria for grumpiness, Grumpiness is a mood. A mood is a prolonged emotional state, typically between a handful of minutes to several hours or even days. You can’t be grumpy for 10 seconds. That would just be an emotion. 

And you probably don’t know why you are grumpy. Everyone says, “I just woke up grumpy”. Usually for no particular reason, grumpiness is mysterious!

Being a man, naturally I reacted to mysterious mumbo jumbo as, well Mumbo Jumbo: No way, there must be a logical ‘mansplaining’ reason for grumpiness, surely? Then I discovered ‘Irritable Male Syndrome’ – I got even grumpier!

Irritable Male Syndrome (IMS):

Some medical practitioners believe the stereotypical grumpy old man, may be suffering IMS, clinically called ‘Andropause’, colloquially ‘Male Menopause’. Andropause is most directly caused by a decrease in testosterone. Testosterone is the key to male reproductive development. It also factors in other male characteristics, such as muscle mass and body hair. Levels of testosterone tend to decline gradually in men starting in their 30s: And I thought the grumpiness in 30 something men was down to overworking, exhausted partners, trying to keep up with the Jones’, and large mortgages.

Having solved the riddle of my grumpiness, I presented my findings to Lizzie, who promptly said:

“You didn’t slowly become grumpy at 40, 50 or 60, you’ve always been consistently grumpy!”

My wife Lizzie.

So now I was grumpy, depressed, transparent, and trying to find solace in the fact that I was a least consistent!

Grumpy guide to weightlifting.

I’m not really into self-help books. Grinding out my morning weightlifting routine, I was pondering this IMS thing. Pondering such could not hurt, could it?

When I was a school kid, teachers often wrote on my reports, “He is consistent..”. I always thought, Ok, that’s a lame code for averagely crap at everything. Then Dwayne reminded me how the world’s view on consistent effort has positively changed.

So where did this mysterious grumpiness commence?

The Origins of Grumpiness.

The world’s first recorded ‘Grumpy Old Man’ was Hesiod, the ancient Greek. Hesiod was such a pain in the arse, his notoriety time travelled down to us. He spent his years complaining, boasting, offering gratuitous advice and being a complete misogynist.

Hesiod’s book ‘Work and Days’ time travelled down to us. In many ways it’s the first self-help book, not something you expect from grumpy old men.

Today we are accustomed to grumpy old men supporting equal opportunisms. They give everyone an equal spray. However, Hesiod started this, letting rip on everything, he mastered and invented the grumpy old man genre.

A Grumpy man’s guide to women.

Hesiod on women:

“Do not let a flaunting woman coax and cozen and deceive you: she is after your barn. The man who trusts womankind trust deceivers.”

Hesiod. 700 BC.

Attacking half the population is definitely not self-help instruction for budding writers!

Hesiod even has advice on toilet habits:

“Never piss in the mouths of rivers which flow to the sea, nor yet in springs; but be careful to avoid this. And do not poo yourself in them: it is not well to do this“.

Hesiod. 700 BC.

The Earth’s rivers and oceans would have received help from adoption of this wise advice. Perhaps readers read Hesiod’s advice on attacking women, decided this guy was an idiot?

Hesiod keeps his most grumpy tirade for his own generation:

“The father will not agree with his children, nor the children with their father, nor guest with his host, nor comrade with comrade; nor will brother be dear to brother as aforetime. Men will dishonour their parents as they grow quickly old.”

Hesiod. 700BC.

Hesiod remains in print 2600 years after his death. Consequently, proving you can be a grumpy old bastard, and still remain relevant.

I have no idea if Hesiod suffered Irritable Male Syndrome, or if he failed to work out in the Ancient Greek Fitness Centre, which Doctor Google informs me was actually called a Gymnasium. Surely a man can be simply consistently grumpy in response to life’s vicissitudes. So, I started with a grumpy character who since my childhood I have known as a bad guy.

Vice-Admiral William Bligh.

William Bligh, of the ‘1789, Mutiny on the Bounty’ fame, was a right grumpy bastard. Lesser known outside Australia, William was also the 1806 Governor of the New South Wales Colony, destined to become Australia. Did he have anything to be grumpy about?

Bligh had a spectacular Royal Navy career, starting as a cabin boy at age 6, Vice Admiral upon his death in 1814 at age 60. Today we would be appalled at the thought of one so young working on any ship at sea, let alone a British combat ship! But the Royal Navy was concerned about a young man’s welfare, so William would have been limited to only one litre of beer per day! William’s peers, the common sailors, were ‘Three Sheets to the Wind’ every day on 4 litres of beer. Perhaps hard to be grumpy around a ship full of drunken, cursing, jig dancing, and hard-working sailors.

However, William applied himself to his studies becoming in the words of his mentor Captain James Cook: “The Royal Navy’s greatest navigator”. 1776, age 22, William’s luck changed, everything went SNAFU, grumpiness set in. Cook selected Bligh for his third Pacific voyage. Cook promptly had himself eaten by Tahitians, Cook’s second in command died from tuberculosis, leaving William to sail the ship home to Britain which he did in 1780. Extraordinary achievement for a 22-year-old. Long ocean voyages of responsibility became Bligh’s habit along with his grumpiness.

Then in 1789, Bligh in command of HMAS Bounty, had a heated discussion with Lieutenant Fletcher Christian.

Captain Grumpy meets Lieutenant Charm.

Fletcher, had none of William’s professionalism, exquisite seamanship, or traditional British Navy ability to endure regardless of setbacks, just get the job done. Whereas Bligh was grumpy and standoffish with the sailors, Christian was extrovert, charming, charismatic, and romantic. His mercurial mood swings, being what today we would call bi-polar. The Bounty had just left Tahiti, a land of plenty, no work, and beautiful island lasses, to whom Christian Morality, was well just silliness.

A mutiny ensued and Bligh found himself with 18 loyal crew, in a 6-metre-long boat, in the even longer, wider open ocean. Not perturbed, Bligh sailed 47 days to the European colonial outpost of Timor. Quite extraordinary feat of navigation and leadership. Doubtful whether many, if anyone living today, could replicate such a journey. If William Bligh lacked sufficient reason to be really grumpy, well it just keeps getting better.

Grumpiness, another Mutiny and Propaganda.

In 1808, Bligh now the Governor of New South Wales, became the victim of another mutiny, this time a successful coup by the British Army forces charged with protecting the Colony. A watercolour painting depicts the arrest of Bligh.

This cartoon is Australia’s earliest surviving political cartoon and like much propaganda it makes use of caricature and exaggeration to convey its message. The New South Wales Corps’ officers regarded themselves as gentlemen, and in depicting Bligh as a coward, the cartoon declares that Bligh was not a gentleman and therefore not fit to govern.

Now we see the reason for William Bligh’s grumpiness, this cartoon, how most Australian’s remember Bligh, is a complete fabrication! If anyone deserved to be Court Martialed, it was the New South Wales Corps’ officers. My previous Postcard, ‘Propagandist Bastards Dangerous Deception‘, discussed the destructive power of propaganda. Bligh was justifiably grumpy, a man of exceptional talent, perhaps the world’s greatest ever navigator: Time travelled down to our generation as a coward hiding under a bed.

Lieutenant Charm and his Princess.

And what of Fletcher Christian? Well, he certainly was not grumpy! He and the Bounty Crew returned to Tahiti, Fletcher married his princess, they sailed off to find another lost island and basically disappeared from history. Well actually Christian was killed in a love tryst, other mutineers were killed playing rugby with Tahitians, the rest were captured by the resilient, and persistent British Navy. During transport back to Old Blighty their ship the ‘Pandora’ ran upon a reef, some drowned, some survived. Some of those survivors were flogged and hanged – A lot of grumpiness all round then!

The End of Grumpiness.

Well, I’m still grumpy! But, with more than a little assistance from Ernest, I did manage to write 2000 words. Not many true sentences, but then Hemingway predated Fake News, Postmodernism, Gonzo Journalism, and the contemporary world which celebrates, “Much ado, about nothing”. Oh, William what a brilliant time traveller though art.

So, what makes me grumpy? Yes, I guess I avoided answering that obvious question:

The standard of driving makes me grumpy. I blame the Japanese. These absolutely reliable, small, fast, automatic hatchbacks – Easy to drive fast, swerve, change lanes, all make old men grumpier! My first cars in the 1970’s/1980’s were slow, cumbersome, manual three speeds, notional brakes – You needed to learn to control such beasts. Or perhaps I’m just jealous?

The rise of White Nationalism, Support of Neo-Fascism and Trumpism – This makes me absolutely raging with Grumpiness – Toss Putin in with that as well.

Writer’s Block Reflections.

I commenced this Post, blocked, little direction: Much to do about nothing. Yet, I have managed 2000 odd words, very odd words I imagine. Every person has a story to tell. The key to overcoming writer’s block is well start writing. That is the essence of Hemingway’s advice, “Write one true sentence“. There are 8 billion humans out there, odds on someone will relate to your story.

Conclusion:

These are events outside my direct control, but they have impact, though not much I can effectively counter them with. Fletcher Christian gave William Bligh a literal lifeboat, William marshalled his loyal team, sailed and rowed his way out of adversity, well more aptly saved himself for yet more adversity to come.

Old Hesiod, the World’s original Grumpy Old Man had a peer in the Ancient World, Marcus Aurelius Emperor of Rome. Marcus definitely did not have IMS and most certainly followed Dwayne Johnson’s testosterone firing workout routine.

Marcus’ writing on stoicism time travelled brilliantly, it remains relevant. A fact that no doubt makes Hesiod grumpier still. Hesiod may be interesting, though I don’t see Linked In Posts promoting Hesiod’s advice about not crapping in your local river. But Marcus provides a lifeboat to navigate your own life’s river, polluted or otherwise, and the even longer, wider open ocean.

I’m still consistently grumpy: But now I’m off to hit the weight bench!