Rusty's Blog

I’m probably never going to be perfect at it, but I hope like hell I’ve corrected one of my many flaws. I suspect that the result is introducing other flaws that will show up in time, but since I’ve realized that learning of, and working on flaws has been a continuous process, I’m neither giving up, nor going to get excessively worried about it.

Many many years ago, when my children were both living with me, I got to talking with someone about personality types. In the process I was shown that I had a very sarcastic sense of humor. Sarcasm would suggest that it was hardly a surprise to me, but let’s get past that bit.

I made a personal commitment to watch out for it, and work on correcting that when I was able, and otherwise pretty much let it go.

A bit over 10 years ago it came back to roost. A few friends of mine at work and I were joking around when on friend turned to me and asked me why I was being so cruel to her.

It wasn’t something I was intentionally doing, but when I looked at what I had been saying, I had to agree that my actions were cruel. And completely unwarranted. (OK, that’s redundant I suppose. All cruelty is unwarranted. Perhaps more accurately pretty much the opposite of what I really wanted to express. She is a wonderful person who I hope things have gone well for, but whom I’ve also lost all touch with.

The cruelty involved was my using sarcasm as a form of humor and being completely unaware of the result I was having on her, and other friends. As you might be aware, my sense of sarcasm as a form of humor hasn’t exactly gone away. But I do try very hard to redirect it towards myself.

There is a pretty sever down side to that of course. attacking myself with sarcasm is the antithesis of a constructive encouraging environment to learn and grow within.

You see, Sarcasm is presenting the Illusion of being smarter than the person being attacked. But if you are attacking yourself, the illusion breaks down as part of the attack, but the attack also goes past ones own defenses. If you think about it a bit, it makes sense. You know what your own most personal failings are, and so when that piece of you that is familiar with that makes an attack on those failings, it is the worst form of a personal attack.

“Get over it!’ The immediate (and sarcastic) response is ‘Sure.’ The reality is that it’s not so much something that one needs to ‘get over’, so much as it is something that must be stopped.

I hope with all sincerity that I have not left anyone feeling that I’ve been cruel to them in the past 10 years. But that hasn’t stopped the cruelty. It’s just moved it to another place where it is undeserved (except for the institution of remorse for my previous behavior, which should not be an ongoing punishment.)

So now the issue is to remove the sense of sarcasm. I’ve successfully demonstrated to myself that sarcasm is not a sign of superior intelligence. If anything it’s a sign of weakness. It is the pickpocket sneaking up behind you, noting a hole in your defenses, lifting your wallet, and sliding a shiv in your side for good measure.

So how to shut down this stupid sarcastic streak. I can tell you with some assurance that it isn’t going to happen through affirmations. Think of it as a call and response. The call goes out ‘I am a positive influence in the lives of my friends.’ response comes back ‘Yeah, right, just like last time!’. So it’s going to have to be a different strategy.

First of all is recognizing where I have been successful. I can here some people suggesting that you will always be good at what you work at. but that’s not what I really mean.

As an example, I’ve pointed out that I’m reasonably good at taking pictures. Not claiming to be a ‘pro’ at it, just that people like some of the pictures I’ve taken very much. And oddly enough I have been asked what my pro rates are. That to me is a success. When people believe you are at a higher level than you yourself feel you are, it is a success in the form of actually exceeding expectations.

Over the past few years I’ve achieved several forms of recognition at work. To some degree I consider them to be examples of doing my job. But they are also examples of places where people think I am doing my job better than others who are doing the same type of work. And whether that means I’m doing my job better than expected, as well as I should while my peers are not keeping up, or just better than others while none of us are as far along as we should be, it is recognition that should be taken positively. The worst sarcasm can suggest is that perhaps the peter principle applies. Not exactly biting. Is it? (I suppose I could be accused of fighting sarcasm with sarcasm there.)

The real trick is to replace the buzzkill which is sarcasm with something useful. To do that you need to know what sarcasm provides. Yes it’s an attack on a weak point, but it’s almost always followed by laughter. There is often a reason it’s called sarcastic humor, it fulfills a basic need in the human psyche to relieve the stress and strain of a significant pain that the person making th comment is under, or perceives in the people about him or her.

That stress and strain will continue to cause the pain, unless a different form of release can be found. That may be telling jokes that are not sarcastic, or if the stress and strain can be managed in a different way, perhaps working towards a resolution the the root problem.

What I did before was change the focus of the sarcasm. The stress was still there. The change is now to direct the energies that were focused on relieving that stress through sarcasm into toher venues, hopefully healthier.