July 8 2012
It's been close to a year since I wrote a journal.
Why have I decided to return to livejournal?
1. I want to write out my thoughts so that they can become expressed in reality. It seems to me that keeping a thought without articulating it is wasteful, and lazy. In line with my belief in the importance of writing, I am keen to refine this skill.
2. Livejournal offers the best environment to express my thoughts. Tumblr is too overwhelming and instant, with visuals dominating at the expense of carefully thought out words. Wordpress too professional-seeming. Twitter too instantaneous and insignificant. Livejournal offers the right amount of privacy and also an appropriate template for rumination.
3. I miss it.
Self-deprecation
I think most people engage in self-deprecating humor. It creates a sort of rapport among people by acknowledging the common weaknesses and failures we commit. Beyond that, we turn our diverse weaknesses into something to laugh at. Instead of beating yourself over a weakness, you throw it out into the open, hoping that others would too be open about their inadequacies. It becomes funny when we realize how stupid we can be and yet realize everyone is to a certain extent.
For the most part, I appreciate self-deprecating humor. But it becomes a problem when a person's sole type of humor is of the self-deprecating sort. After a certain point, we expect people who are self-deprecating to pick themselves up and restore some sort of dignity. Perhaps, we think of this as strength. And when people just wallow in self-deprecating jokes, it seems that they are unwilling to do anything about their weaknesses and instead overtly appear to invite pity.
I call for a more wholesome type of humor to exist in our repertoire of jolliness. Because like it or not, your humor reflects your character. By implication, I offer that we learn from our humor and better understand ourselves.By understanding this critical aspect of our interpersonal interactions, we can make changes and hopefully strive towards the model person we desire to be (which I assume include some sort of all-roundedness).