On the New York Times website apparently there is a complaint blog. Said blog is exactly what it sounds like, a small space where weekly complaints are issued about some specific New York related topic. Today's issue is gym etiquette. Forthwith I have to issue a complaint about the complaint blog.

Neverminding for the moment that the Nytimes website should be a place for respectable journalism mimicking its actual print publication, I can't for the life of me establish how anyone can justify voicing their own petty mindless complaint on a national scale (ignoring political pundits). It must require some sort of inflated sense of righteousness to that a person (an average citizen complainer) can believe that his wit's end about excessive sweat on an elliptical deserves to be broadcast nationally.

I understand that living in the country I do I am particularly lucky to be able to complain. It registers with me that millions (billions really) on this very same planet have no such possibility of a voice. And because of this it makes me even angrier that people and the NYtimes finds it reasonable that a couple of super-fit gymrats can issue inconsiderate tirades about gym newbies, people who may not stick with it or whatever but are at least doing something to take control of their life, even if only for a day. THERE ARE REAL THINGS TO COMPLAIN ABOUT RIGHT AROUND YOUR CORNER, but apparently you're busing pouting because there are overweight people blocking the image of you in the mirror. Here's a thought, If you have a complaint about your gym, go to another one, or at least talk to management. OR HEY! Talk to the people you have a problem with, show them the courtesy of helpful instruction. Maybe just a small 1 minute pointer will be the jump start to get them to hold on to that new year's resolution gym membership and then Hey! look what's happened, you've radically changed someone's life. Be human for a second and allow for a minutia of human understanding if not sympathy.

Is this why we exist in a society of apathy? Because people are busy misdirecting their anger to long and slowmoving banklines or else slow-walkers on the sidewalk? When we give voice to the pebble-sized complaints of everyday life how will we as a public be able to register the boulders actually blocking our way. In a time where there are plenty of real issues to complain about inside our very own borders let alone the rest of the world, what we need are billboard sized reminders that there are no walls between us and our neighbors. You can talk to me and work things out if there is a problem, maybe even taste human companionship. Complaints are for the institutions higher up, not your fellow man.