Grumpy starts at 52

[manitou]

CITE: National Examiner; May 30, 2011 issue

Page 36

 

 

Folks don't start out as sourpusses - they get grumpy as they age.

 

A new study of 2,000 subjects reveals that grumpiness begins at age 52 and mushrooms as people get older.

 

The least cranky humans are the babies, who laugh an average of 300 times a day.

 

But by the time they've grown into teenagers, the chuckles have plummeted to just six daily. Folks over 60 laugh a sulky 2 1/2 times every 24 hours.

 

And it's no wonder that older men are usually portrayed as grouches - because guys tend to be a lot crabbier than gals.

 

 

(I do have enough ego left to tell you that I buy these to read articles on the phone to my mother, who has dementia or Alzheimers. Some of these stories are hysterical, and by the time the phone call is over her endolphins are swimming all over the place. If anyone is dealing with someone with dementia, PLEASE consider reading the Examiner or the Globe to them. It'll make their day. The headline on page 37, which I'm just getting to, is ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN STAR FOUND MUMMIFIED IN HOME. Mom should enjoy that, lol)

 

Isn't it wonderful that our original self laughs 300 times a day?

[C T]

 

Isn't it wonderful that our original self laughs 300 times a day?

Its even more wonderful when we realize that we only think we have departed from this 'original self'.

 

Its forever with us, like it or not. In sickness or in health, wholeness is our nature. This is why the authentic holy person laughs all the time - they lose identification with separation, realizing each moment that even contraction is not outside of the wholeness that is life itself. Total vulnerability, absolute surrender, unconditional acceptance. Like water.... she holds all things, yet retains nothing, formless forevermore.

 

Recognizing this 'original nature', allowing its radiance to reveal itself, is a consequence of spiritual freedom, and not the cause, i would think. Sometimes, the more we do, the more we look, the less is revealed.

[C T]

d.p.

Edited May 26, 2011 by CowTao

[Marblehead]

Its even more wonderful when we realize that we only think we have departed from this 'original self'.

 

This is what I speak to when I speak about letting our child out to play.

[manitou]

This is what I speak to when I speak about letting our child out to play.

 

I think it also goes to underlying attitude about everything. To look at life with the innocence of the child, to make no judgments because you haven't learned to do so yet. To be receptive and open to everything and everyone; to find that little thing to love in the person even if they're detestable. To be in awe of the natural world, to not take the natural world for granted. To see the world as though seeing it for the first time. This is a mindset to aspire to return to, I think, through inner cultivation.

Edited May 26, 2011 by manitou

[Marblehead]

I think it also goes to underlying attitude about everything. To look at life with the innocence of the child, to make no judgments because you haven't learned to do so yet. To be receptive and open to everything and everyone; to find that little thing to love in the person even if they're detestable. To be in awe of the natural world, to not take the natural world for granted. To see the world as though seeing it for the first time. This is a mindset to aspire to return to, I think, through inner cultivation.

 

You used more words than I did. Hehehe.

 

Well done!

[manitou]

You used more words than I did. Hehehe.

 

Well done!

 

 

Well, that's what us girls are good at. More words.

[Otis]

Great share, Manitou (and comments, everyone).

 

Unfortunately, I have seen grumpiness begin a lot sooner than 52. I've noticed it in myself, for example.

 

My dear friend Leigh, who used to live next door, was my partner in crime on the road to grumpiness, for awhile. I'd hang out with her in the evenings, as she drank whiskey and watched her TV shows. She was a very funny and intelligent woman, but even in her early 30s, she was succumbing to schadenfreude, to grumpiness and misanthropy. Man, she loved to complain, and for awhile, I found myself enjoying that seductive posture of being against the world. There is, indeed, some neurochemical reward in the brain, for being sour and grumpy and superior. It's almost fun, for awhile.

 

Thankfully, I started dating a woman (Outi) who was sunny and funny and loving. She helped me pick my head up from that increasing addiction to darkness, and enjoy the joyful levity of wanting the best for others. I still have a lot to learn, to open up that capacity, but I am ever so glad that I have been following her example, rather than Leigh's. I witnessed Leigh go on to get more and more brittle, to the point that she seems to have cut all possible romance out of her life, because she's not willing to be vulnerable.

 

Thank you Leigh, and thank you Outi, for both being examples in my life, of what it means to embrace negativity, or to embrace joy.

[de_paradise]

Great share, Manitou (and comments, everyone).

 

Unfortunately, I have seen grumpiness begin a lot sooner than 52. I've noticed it in myself, for example.

 

My dear friend Leigh, who used to live next door, was my partner in crime on the road to grumpiness, for awhile. I'd hang out with her in the evenings, as she drank whiskey and watched her TV shows. She was a very funny and intelligent woman, but even in her early 30s, she was succumbing to schadenfreude, to grumpiness and misanthropy. Man, she loved to complain, and for awhile, I found myself enjoying that seductive posture of being against the world. There is, indeed, some neurochemical reward in the brain, for being sour and grumpy and superior. It's almost fun, for awhile.

 

Thankfully, I started dating a woman (Outi) who was sunny and funny and loving. She helped me pick my head up from that increasing addiction to darkness, and enjoy the joyful levity of wanting the best for others. I still have a lot to learn, to open up that capacity, but I am ever so glad that I have been following her example, rather than Leigh's. I witnessed Leigh go on to get more and more brittle, to the point that she seems to have cut all possible romance out of her life, because she's not willing to be vulnerable.

 

Thank you Leigh, and thank you Outi, for both being examples in my life, of what it means to embrace negativity, or to embrace joy.

 

This should be a movie plot. There are so many grumpy people out there or those unwittingly getting grumper by the minute because they get attracted to that path, fallen into habit, and then it doesnt release them. I think of "catcher in the rye" where its so cool to be the outsider, but then they dont show where the kid grows up and all the joy gets cut out.

[三江源]

Hey you-all.

 

How do you think the board does with regard to embracing negativity or embracing joy?

 

Could we embrace joy more and gravitate upwards?

[Otis]

How do you think the board does with regard to embracing negativity or embracing joy?

It's mixed, I think.

 

On another thread, someone was calling Steve F a backstabber, precisely because Steve was arguing against insults, as a way of conversation. It was both bizarre and unsettling, especially since I have only witnessed Steve as a very grounded, aware, clear and caring individual.

 

So I see great momentum towards appreciation, curiosity, care and discovery, usually from the same respectful clear few.

 

But I also see from others, a great deal of the need to be right, the need to win, the need to be superior. And to be fair, I have all those things in me! But IME these are not virtues, but traps. They have only blinded me, and kept me from learning from others.

 

Unfortunately, in society sometimes overly-loud and overly-certain are convincing (witness fundamentalism and Glenn Beck). So, those who hold the most emphatic beliefs are often glorified, even if the beliefs are just overblown theories, and not based on awareness and experience.

 

There's always room to move toward more joy. I'm proud of those in here, who keep themselves honest and respectful of others. I do my best (most of the time) to do that, as well. The rest, well, I don't know how to reach them, nor do I know whether there's any point in me worrying about them. If nothing else, they serve as a lesson to learn from, like my friend Leigh was to me.

[manitou]

I think this forum is yin and yang. There are people who are loving by nature and those who are contentious by nature. We all have the capacity to be both. I think this is part of our inner cultivation, how we "anonymously" treat each other through a computer screen. If someone is chronically nasty, that is a window into that persons soul. That's just where they are at this time, and has a ways to go before developing the 3 Treasures.

 

The Treasure we seem to be talking about here is: Never be the first in the world. (Lin Yutang's translation). As far as I can see, this goes directly to our egos, our need to be right, to be first, to be the winner. The great Cosmic Sense of Humor gave us that, we're stuck with it. But the inner work tames it so that if we stay in the Here and Now we can choose to react exactly as we want, without the distortion of ego.

 

I don't think we talk enough about real inner work on this forum. There are many templates for the work: but in my opinion, in order to get to the place of balance that we all seek, it must involve searching out our negative qualities; if we're getting angry on this forum all the time, it's because we still have buttons which are capable of being pushed, and with regularity they are guaranteed to be pushed in these discussions.

 

And I think the best templates are also those that include making amends for the wrongs we have done in our life. This is a ridiculously humbling (and sometimes humiliating) experience. But it is this very thing, the pain of admitting a mistake, that brings us to any real understanding of humility. The sage does have humility.

The hardest ones for me to make were to my father - in my mind he 'started' all the bad feelings by the thrashings with a leather belt across my young bare behind. But in order for me to find what I was looking for, I had to make amends to him for the things I did in retalitation, like running away, not obeying him, etc. The thought of making amends to him was so repugnant, I nearly gagged on my words. But the amazing thing is that he capitulated when I didn't expect him to.....he actually apologized to me afterwards for being too heavy-handed. Today I realize that we're all just victims of victims. He was just giving me what had been given to him. I can honestly say that I actually do now feel some love for the memory of that man, and I realize that some of my greatest strength was from him and because of him.

 

We come and we go from the Tao Bums. I've left before because someone stepped on my ego and it ticked me off and I just signed off for a while. I always seem to come back, though - there just aren't that many places that you can find discussions of this calibre.

 

It just has its ups and downs, that's all....and I'm a proponent of let's love each other and help each other evolve upwards.