Yesterday, I came across Brain Pickings, and happened onto the post 10 Learnings from 10 Years of Brain Pickings. This kind of deep reflection on what it takes to be a better human being is the kind of writing I want to be doing on this site. I feel very lucky to have encountered Brain Pickings, as Ms Popova’s writing is elegant and her pieces are thoughtful and inspiring.
While I was smiling and nodding along to the author’s insights, her tenth: “Don’t just resist cynicism, fight it actively” caused me to consider the words I have been carelessly throwing on here. Within my category “snark” where I gather my amusing little anecdotes and pithy comments, I’m probably not putting my time or my zeros and ones to their best use. I need to rethink this.
The other day I read a draft of a poem to a friend, who was blessedly frank with me about the piece. She asked me about my intention for the work. What was I saying about the subject? What would be the effect on readers, who weren’t familiar with the topic and read my poem? She was able to articulate for me why I had been unsure of the piece, and hesitated to post it, as it would have a result opposite to my desire, which was to welcome people into new experience, smooth the path for them to take a small risk.
Growing up, Seinfeld was a popular comedy and my friends and I quoted the lines amongst ourselves, feeling very urban sophisticate. It shaped how I thought of the world and what I believed to be funny.
Watching a rerun a few months ago, I realised that we were conditioned to laugh at people complaining about very mundane slights. It had a real and insidious impact on my generation, believing it to be normal and funny to whine about things. Seinfeld taught us to focus on the problem, rather than the solution.
I don’t want this blog to be all serious and too high-brow. I do want to encourage people to laugh, at me, at themselves, at the world, but I need to commit to doing so in a way that leaves readers feeling better about themselves and the world.
I’m going to leave the snark tag up for now, but look forward to it being joined by other kinds of humour.
What do you find funny?
Sarah Bonnar 