Being Serious is Hard – Part 1

Posted: September 4th, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Japan, Personal | Comments Off on Being Serious is Hard – Part 1

And in this case, I’m being very serious.

While I would really like to blame the month of September, as this was when I started noticing the serious-ing of things, I’m pretty sure that seriousness, realistically speaking, has been around far longer than that.

Please, don’t get me wrong, I think can be serious when the situation calls for it (or so I say). Admittedly, there are some people could probably argue that I’m lying to myself. There might be a seed of truth there.

Yes, there are things that demand my attention, my ‘serious’ attention. I’m not talking about global hunger, war, nuclear proliferation, or whatever. But things on which my attitude has an impact, things that reside on a personal level. These issues can be heavy problems, but frankly I’d rather err on the side of lightheartedness than taking them to the terribly serious extreme that others seem to find so immediately necessary.

How can the antonym of serious be lighthearted and the antonym of lighthearted be miserable?

For me being lighthearted is being unfettered. I think being truly serious with someone is probably one of the most direct forms of interpersonal intimacy. Is it understandable that when things start to get serious, I start to feel a little trapped (tell me that isn’t a sign of some relational defect). For example, when someone wants to talk to me about a serious matter, it makes me uncomfortable that I feel obligated to, even if I don’t feel close enough to them for something like this to happen.

If my over-lightheartedness, or a certain level of superficiality, are not valid behavior practices, then what about the serious ones? Does all the responsibility rest with me?

or maybe we balance each other out.

*shrug*

More later.

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