seriousness, sarcasm, and not taking yourself seriously
It’s awesome to be serious about something.
Growing up, I used to be ashamed of how serious I was compared to other people. Of course, I had a sense of humor, but I always felt the need to hold back what was truly on my mind: my goals, practicing basketball, dance, mindfulness, psychology, relationships, and ways of seeing the world. I’d worry that I’d alienate others with pursuits and ideas I took seriously.
Sometimes I’m still self-conscious about my seriousness. Sarcasm is in. Cynicism is cool. Irony is clever. And if I’m honest, I do act more sarcastic and jaded around people I meet. Maybe it’s an unconscious tactic I do to get someone to like me and I haven’t fully accepted that not everyone will. I could work on that.
Anyway. Today, I embrace the fact that I’m naturally a serious person.
I’ve also learned that seriousness and having a sense of humor go hand-in-hand.
In my early twenties, I learned to not take myself seriously. In New York, I met people who were always lighthearted and fun yet still went after their desires persistently. How fascinating was it that people can be driven, yet lighthearted. I started to not take myself seriously too.
In Are You Serious?, visa writes:
So the point is to take the work seriously but you don’t take yourself too seriously. There’s a riff about this in Stephen Pressfield’s War of Art, where he talks about how amateurs are too precious with their work: “The professional has learned, however, that too much love can be a bad thing. Too much love can make him choke. The seeming detachment of the professional, the cold-blooded character to his demeanor, is a compensating device to keep him from loving the game so much that he freezes in action.”
However, there’s a difference between not taking yourself seriously and being too self-deprecating. It’s tricky. I love people who share a healthy amount of self-deprecation — they make me laugh. But when self-deprecation is extreme, I’m uncomfortable because their personal issues constantly taking the limelight.
In my late twenties, I’ve become even more lighthearted and playful. In my last year in review, I share:
I used to be afraid of extending myself for another person. But with Kayla, me extending myself ended up being a version of myself that I’ve wanted all along: I’m much more lighthearted, much more playful, and much more like a kid again. I used to be critical of how self-critical I was (god what a spiral). Now, I rarely take rejections or failures personally.
What I didn’t add here is that I’m much more lighthearted, yet still serious. Seriousness and lightheartedness aren’t mutually exclusive. They’re both friends who work well together.
John Cleese says there’s a difference between seriousness and solemnity:
Now I suggest to you that a group of us could be sitting around after dinner, discussing matters that were extremely serious like the education of our children, or our marriages, or the meaning of life, and we could be laughing, and that would not make what we were discussing one bit less serious. Solemnity, on the other hand, I honestly don’t know what it’s for. I mean, what is the point of it? The two most beautiful memorial services that I’ve ever attended both had a lot of humor and it freed us all and made the services inspiring and cathartic. But solemnity, it serves pomposity. And the self-important always know, at some level of their consciousness, that their egotism is going to be punctured by humor. That’s why they see it as a threat.
This resonates with how I’ve come to view seriousness. Seriousness ≠ taking yourself seriously. It’s caring *a lot* about something — an idea, a goal, a project, a conversation, your family, your friends — while holding yourself very lightly and laughing along the way. As Visa put it, “Seriousness is love and curiosity expressed earnestly.”
What if seriousness was cool and irony wasn’t?
Self-deprecation, cynicism, sarcasm, and irony are cool. They drive our feeds, conversations at bars, and memes. Not gonna lie, I love memes.
But Katherine Boyle says seriousness is a resource America lacks:
seriousness is no longer a trait we celebrate in people, replaced by the shield of irony that permeates every conversation, every tweet and so many interactions we have with each other. The ironic voice dominates our online discourse and media culture. Our critics and chroniclers mock the new and the bold and those who are deadly serious about their missions as though they’re relics of a bygone era.
Our cultural tendency to be cynical can dampen seriousness’s role in a thriving society. Sounds grandiose. Let me try to explain.
Like, we’ve all seen the sarcastic earth day memes. They make me laugh.
But imagine your feed full of sarcastic memes. Feeds filled with sacarsm makes people feel like it’s impossible to change climate/culture/politics/society. I often feel like this too. Because we feel like it’s impossible to change things, we resonate more with sarcastic content, which makes our algorithms show us more sarcastic memes, which makes us even more cynical. Cynicism self-perpetuates without us even knowing it.
Instead of all the jaded memes on our feed, what if we saw actionable suggestions for how we can elect more progressive leaders in office (knowing that progressive leaders can change policy and this is one of our biggest levers for solving climate change)? Or what if we see more companies (like Patagonia) donating all their profits to environmental organizations?
What if everything wasn’t a parody? And what if earnestness was cool?
For people who are naturally serious like me, this moment is an awesome reminder to feel proud (and not shame) about our seriousness. The world literally needs it.
Just remember not to take yourself seriously while you take what you care about seriously. Your soul (and sense of humor) will thank you for it.