What you hate will show you the way

Those things that wind you up are your roadmap to meaningful work

"The squeaky wheel gets the grease." – American Proverb

THEY SAY, “There’s no use in complaining”—that instead of spreading bad vibes, it’s best to accept things just as they are.

But actually, it depends.

When it comes to finding meaningful work, I’ve found that having something to complain about has been a very useful posture.

Take essay writing. From a practice-and-process point of view, if I want to avoid procrastinating, if I want to stamp out any chance of general slovenliness—basically, if I want to get going and enjoy the ride—I can do a lot worse than indulge in a sincere rant.

The things that wind me up are always a compass pointing me to my deeper values—“Look, I'm taking a stand on badly designed food packaging or the darker sides of digital nomadism.” It’s comforting to remind myself what I believe is important and nice to build up a bit of extra confidence in doing so. You could even say it takes certain leadership qualities to stand up and complain publicly.

Having a rant can also help to attract others who share my frustrations—“Look, I'm just like you!”—and then I get to enjoy connecting with them and having a good old group moan.

Moaning is risky, though, if that’s the only posture because, let’s be honest, nobody likes a one-trick, one-upping, shade-throwing whiner.

However, if I can switch lanes once I’ve let rip on the page—if I can shift from complaining to, say, questioning or empathising or playing—then I have a chance of writing something that resonates with people and has some novelty to it.

The following excerpt from an essay in Monocle probably began in the writer’s mind as irritable thoughts, which eventually crystallised into a convincing rant. But the writer went a step further, shifting his posture to incorporate some analysis and some humour. The result is a piece that makes me laugh and even manages to change my perception of how appealing e-scooters are (not):

"E-scooters were always an answer to a question that presumably nobody had asked: “What would be an efficient way of making life for pedestrians miserable at best, dangerous at worst?” They have been a blight upon every city on which they have descended. In use, they are a nuisance and a menace. When stationary, they’re ugly and obstructive litter. […] In the past few years I have seen – and despaired of – several formerly great cities for strollers and saunterers turn into something akin to roller-derby rinks. Footpaths are aswarm with these swift, silent and therefore dangerous conveyances, which are invariably piloted with abandon by the cohort of hooligans that seem drawn to them.” - Andrew Mueller, Monocle, 2023

“and despaired of” 😂

When you think about it, a lot of popular products and services must themselves have started out as rants—“Why can’t I listen to music on the go?” “Why does it cost so much to send money abroad?” “Why can’t scooters be motorised?” This is because complaints are often phrased as open questions that elicit creative thinking and lead to fresh ideas. I reckon that’s as true for writers as it is for entrepreneurs.

On the occasions when I’ve started an essay by venting my frustrations, it’s actually led to a personal transformation. I’m thinking of my essay about “sodcasting” (that is, people playing loud music on their phones on the bus). Make no mistake, it started off as a big venomous rant, “WHY THE HELL IS THIS HAPPENING EVERYWHERE AND WHY IS NOBODY DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT?!” but by the end, I learned about sodcasting’s roots in 70s and 80s boombox culture.

Writing that essay changed my perspective to see that kids blasting music on the bus today are often just trying to tell us something—something that I often wish I could broadcast myself—that we should look up from our phones more and stop ignoring each other. It seems we’re not so different after all, those sodcasters and me.

Recently, I've heard folks objecting to asking young people, “What do you want to be when you’re older?” Folks don’t like the way it forces youngsters to make decisions about things they have no experience in.

But that complaint has led to the creation of a better question: “What problems do you want to solve?” which is another way of asking, “What’s worth complaining about right now?” I prefer that question. It empowers the person I am today by activating and channelling my present values, abilities and curiosities.

Taking all this into account, then, it seems that a posture of complaining can be very useful indeed, both as an essayist looking for my next big idea and as a human being looking for the best work I can do with my one precious life.

So, to put the question in your hands—dear reader—what pisses you off, right now? Who or what could you rant a thousand words about with no hesitation?

It’s worth keeping a list. Because, apart from being a surefire way to start creating without restraints (and produce something funny to look back on in the future), your “rant list” could be your roadmap to the projects and people you really should be working with.

Below is my list (can you tell I like eating?). I’ve ticked off the grievances that I’ve written about so far. You can click them to read them.

My rant list: things that wind me up

• Square plates

• Adult fussy eaters

• My shitty education

• Really loud motorbike engines

• Public toilets with no coat hooks

• People who have an answer for everything

• Food packaging that doesn’t open intelligently

• People playing loud music on their phones on the bus

• Pizza restaurants that don’t slice your pizza and only give you blunt knives

• People who walk into a cafe or restaurant and leave the door wide open in the middle of winter

So, what’s on your list? Reply or let me know in the comments if you’re up for sharing.

And I do want to underline the point about shifting postures: Just because the essays started out as viperous verbal vomit doesn't mean the rest of the writing process was hostile. Once the rant was out of me, I could stand back and work with it in a resourceful way—and what emerged was sometimes joyful, sometimes solemn, sometimes silly, instructive or poetic. It became whatever my better, less grouchy, nature needed it to be.

I hope that’s helpful. And if it’s not, feel free to write me a strongly worded letter.

Thanks for reading, see you next time.

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Thank you Andrew at

Good For Something

, Lavinia at

Lavinia’s Substack

, Becky at

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, Meryl at

Curiosities

, Mohammad at

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, Priya at

Priya's Substack

, Andriy at

Andriy’s Stack

, Diana at

Liminal Lines

and CansaFis at

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for helping me write this.