Anyone else ever have the issue of people assuming you're not "serious" or telling you to "be serious / take things seriously?"
Every now and then, I get told that "I don't take anything seriously." Typically, this is coming from someone who doesn't know me very well, or hasn't been paying attention to me. It is true that I can find something funny about pretty much anything, even while it's happening and the situation is absolutely horrible. I will generally say it, too, when it pops into my head, and sometimes I guess it is interpreted the wrong way.
This doesn't mean I'm not taking the situation seriously, though. I'm perfectly capable of recognizing the ramifications of a situation, but I fail to see why that means I have to be down in the mouth about it all the time. It's like... have you ever seen a "serious" movie, and just come away completely unphased because it was so unfathomably grim that it wasn't realistic? Things are not constantly morbid and serious; I can bet that even on your absolute worst day, something funny happened. Maybe not to you, but something around you was probably utterly hilarious, whether you noticed or not. To me, that's why it's ridiculous to actually try to be "serious" all the time.
Maybe what confuses people is that I will say serious things that I mean entirely, but I will still laugh or make a joke about it afterward. I don't know how else to say it, but yeah, practically everything is pretty funny. "I'm two weeks behind on my rent, my bank account is overdrawn, and work still hasn't scheduled me for any hours for the next two weeks? Maybe I can just get everyone I owe together in a room, throw some money in the middle, and they'll fight to the death over it." (Although I'm glad to say with my new job that situation no longer arises, hehe)
But things like that I can't understand how you can take it seriously. It'd drive you nuts because there's little or nothing you can do about it. Besides, it's all based on artificial constructs like monetary systems which are about as "real" as the tail-end of a mobius strip. How are you supposed to take that seriously? Modern life is, largely, a big joke as far as I can tell.
Generally, I don't even fit people's expectations of "seriousness" when I'm angry. If I am actually dead, flat serious, then something has managed to somehow push me so far beyond "anger" that all traces of emotion are lost and I expect the atmosphere to catch fire simply through my force of will. People have pushed me that far in the last few years, and it's a little creepy. It's like, you can tell what you're doing is wrong, dangerous, or mean, but you just can't care because you know it will create the best outcome, so you do it anyway. That sort of cold, impersonal logic is what I think of when I think of "being serious."
Apparently this isn't what other people think of, though. They seem to think it means some kind of crummy little dance where you have to say the exact right words to make them think you actually acknowledge and understand what is going on, otherwise you fail because "you're not being serious." Which, as a form of social interaction, is pretty ridiculous in itself.
Every now and then, I get told that "I don't take anything seriously." Typically, this is coming from someone who doesn't know me very well, or hasn't been paying attention to me. It is true that I can find something funny about pretty much anything, even while it's happening and the situation is absolutely horrible. I will generally say it, too, when it pops into my head, and sometimes I guess it is interpreted the wrong way.
This doesn't mean I'm not taking the situation seriously, though. I'm perfectly capable of recognizing the ramifications of a situation, but I fail to see why that means I have to be down in the mouth about it all the time. It's like... have you ever seen a "serious" movie, and just come away completely unphased because it was so unfathomably grim that it wasn't realistic? Things are not constantly morbid and serious; I can bet that even on your absolute worst day, something funny happened. Maybe not to you, but something around you was probably utterly hilarious, whether you noticed or not. To me, that's why it's ridiculous to actually try to be "serious" all the time.
Maybe what confuses people is that I will say serious things that I mean entirely, but I will still laugh or make a joke about it afterward. I don't know how else to say it, but yeah, practically everything is pretty funny. "I'm two weeks behind on my rent, my bank account is overdrawn, and work still hasn't scheduled me for any hours for the next two weeks? Maybe I can just get everyone I owe together in a room, throw some money in the middle, and they'll fight to the death over it." (Although I'm glad to say with my new job that situation no longer arises, hehe)
But things like that I can't understand how you can take it seriously. It'd drive you nuts because there's little or nothing you can do about it. Besides, it's all based on artificial constructs like monetary systems which are about as "real" as the tail-end of a mobius strip. How are you supposed to take that seriously? Modern life is, largely, a big joke as far as I can tell.
Generally, I don't even fit people's expectations of "seriousness" when I'm angry. If I am actually dead, flat serious, then something has managed to somehow push me so far beyond "anger" that all traces of emotion are lost and I expect the atmosphere to catch fire simply through my force of will. People have pushed me that far in the last few years, and it's a little creepy. It's like, you can tell what you're doing is wrong, dangerous, or mean, but you just can't care because you know it will create the best outcome, so you do it anyway. That sort of cold, impersonal logic is what I think of when I think of "being serious."
Apparently this isn't what other people think of, though. They seem to think it means some kind of crummy little dance where you have to say the exact right words to make them think you actually acknowledge and understand what is going on, otherwise you fail because "you're not being serious." Which, as a form of social interaction, is pretty ridiculous in itself.
