31 March 2006

a good idea

My mother ranted about the council today. With good reason; Hounslow Council are fucking awful and there should be a complete audit of their spending and practices. But the ranting got kind of excessive and sowed the seeds of an idea.

For the most part, I hate complaining. Kind of. I love to rant every once in awhile, because it's fun to cut loose and eviscerate something that bothers you with wit, obscenities or sometimes both. But complaining, at its essence, is whining. And that bugs me. Especially as it's necessary. There are loads of people and organisations of people doing fucking badly at their jobs and they need to be brought to account. As people we have to not stand for their shit, call them on it, tell them they suck and it's just not good enough, or they'll just keep on doing it.

But it still irks me. Because threat of complaint is a shitty excuse to do a good job, or to fulfill responsibility. It should be done for a purpose, not for fear of complaint.

So I've decided, every time I complain about something - even on this blog - I'm going to come up with an idea. It doesn't have to be directly related to the issue I'm complaining about, but it has to be proactive at heart. I have to write it down. It can be anything: from an idea for a story to an idea for new forms of local government. It doesn't have to be feasible, but it helps: extra credit for feasible. Ideas balance whining. That's my theory.

So that's my idea. And it wasn't even me that bitched this time, so I'm going into this thing with credit.

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