Why I Hate Everything...

I have decided that I don’t like a lot of things these days.  I have very strongly held beliefs about how the world should be.  Whether that be ideas of faith, family structure, love, citizenship, morality, patriotism, or ideas about how my favorite tv, movie, video game, and comic properties should be represented.  I also find that as time goes on the world seems to move further and further away from my ideal version of it, and as that move occurs I find myself more disagreeable and grumpier. 

I have become the proverbial grumpy old man.  I didn’t used to be this way.  I used to be very open to new and exciting things, embracing what was around the corner instead of holding bitterly onto the past.  Josh Flanagan from iFanboy helped me realize why this was occurring while discussing on his podcast why he disliked the Superman vs Batman movie.  He basically said that 12 year old Josh would have loved that movie, but 40 year Josh hated it.  Part of that was because it was just a poorly made movie but part of it was because he’s had 30 years to think about and reflect on these characters, particularly Superman, and found that the version of the characters presented wasn’t in his mind the version he preferred.  And when I heard that it dawned on me.  Wow, that’s what’s going on with me.

At some point in my past, probably in my early teen years, the world crystalized and everything was perfect.  From that moment on the world looks less and less like my ideal version of it.  Whether that be problems with people figuring out which bathroom to use or Superman no longer wearing the red trunks on the outside, I find myself feeling more like a foreigner in a strange land. It’s kind of like what Steve Rogers experiences being a man out of time, but on a smaller slower moving scale.  

I can only image that this problem will get worse as I continue to age, and now I can see that this is exactly why grumpy old people talk about the good old days and why they don’t like anything anymore.  That, and hip and back pain. I don’t want to be that older person, but I’m not sure how to avoid it.  Should I be more willing to accept what I naturally am inclined not to like?  Or should I go kicking and screaming, fighting for what I think is right and good and true, for all mankind?