Sarcasm

As I have explored the internets, I have come across something very interesting: the use of sarcasm. Sarcasm is something you come across every day in the real world, and is the basis for a large amount of humorous things that people say.

But when it comes to the written word, including what is published online, using sarcasm effectively is very difficult. Even for a talented writer who can invoke many complex emotions in his reader, sarcasm is generally avoided because it requires hearing tone of voice to be correctly interpreted.

However, as I was reading some blogs online, I discovered that many humorous writers have devised a simple way to bypass all the confusion of written sarcasm. They call it the "sarcasm hand." Whenever the writer say something sarcastic, at the end of the sentence they write in parentheses, "sarcasm hand raised."

This phrase is more often than not manipulated so it can describe the level of sarcasm used. I shall try to demonstrate.

Sardines are SOOO good. (Sarcasm hand.)

I can't wait for finals week! (Hand raised so high my fingers just brushed the underside of a flying commercial jet.)

The Twilight series is extremely well written, the characters are well developed and consistent, the plot keeps you guessing, and the relationships are a good model of what a healthy relationship should be like. (Sarcasm hand raised so high I just made a shadow puppet on the face of Pluto.)

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

I would like to share a book that I have found very helpful in my life, especially when I am feeling down or need some motivation. It is called "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff (for Teens)" by Richard Carlson. It gives wonderful advice for dealing with stressful situations that young people often face.

One thing that I love about this book is that it has sort, concise chapters for each topic discussed. Whenever I feel stressed, I just pick up the book, flip to a chapter, and read. It usually doesn't even matter which chapter I read, I almost instantly feel better. Carlson has a voice of understanding, yet he effectively gets his reader to think rationally, no matter what the situation may be. His short chapters make it easy to read, and he uses the perfect mixture of information, compassion, and humor to get his reader excited about life again.

This book has helped me through some hard times, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is struggling, whether it be with relationships, homework, a bad mood, insecurity, or just about anything else.

Excerpt from "The Choice" by Arbinger Institute

Self-Betrayal

As a person, I know what it means to be a

person. I have a sense of what people need.

For example: I see a person in need, and 
I feel to help.




My responsiveness to others' needs is my 
deepest sense of what is right.


I can resist this responsiveness toward 
others' needs.


If I do, I betray my deepest sense of what 
is right.




Betray my deepest sense of what is right
and I betray myself.




Betray myself and I do wrong. Do wrong
and I seek to be justified. I begin seeing a
world that makes the wrong seem right.


Example: My child cries in the middle of
the night, and I feel to get up and tend to
her before my spouse wakes up.
But I don't.


I now say:


"I got up last time."

"My spouse is not as busy as I am."


"My spouse is probably feigning sleep."




Another example: I obtain information
that would help a coworker and I feel I
should share it. But I don't.


I now say:


"This person doesn't help me."


"This person is too dependent on others already."


"I worked hard for this information."




The people I felt to help now seem
blameworthy.


I feel justified in not helping.


But did they seem blameworthy when I
felt to help?


Why do they seem blameworthy now?


Betray myself and I seek to be justified by
blaming others. I become resistant to them.




People Or Objects


So I betray myself, and people to help
become objects of blame.


Instead of people with their own lives, I
now see others as obstacles in mine,


or as vehicles to be used for my purposes,


or as irrelevancies that offer me no
advantage.




Consider:


When I felt to get up and tend the baby
before my spouse woke up, was my spouse
a person or an object to me?


And how was I seeing my coworker when I
felt I should share the information I had
obtained?




Compare:


How did I see my spouse and my coworker
after I betrayed my sense of what I
should do for them?




Responsive is who I was.


Resistant is the way I made myself in
self-betrayal.


Reducing people to mere objects is the
way I resist them.

Wisdom from Lewis Carroll

Yesterday I read an excerpt from Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland.” It was about Alice’s encounter with the Cheshire cat. When the cat pointed out which way the Mad Hatter and the March Hare lived, Alice exclaimed that she didn’t want to be around mad people. “Oh you can’t help that,” Said the Cat: “we’re all mad here.”

No matter where we go, there will be “mad” people. We will meet people who are disagreeable, strange, and antagonistic. We can either be offended by them, or we can choose to give them the benefit of the doubt and not let them bother us.

At work there is a girl who is sometimes rude to me. Usually I would avoid her and never spoke to her. But today I decided to smile and say hello to her when I went into work. And to my surprise, she smiled and said hello back. I may never know why she acts the way she does sometimes, but it doesn’t mean I can’t be nice to her.

Pattern for Prayer

In my Book of Mormon class Sister Halverson talked about a pattern of prayer as outlined by Elder Bednar. He prays in the morning to ask Heavenly Father what he can do that day to improve himself and asks for guidance throughout the day. Then he prays in the middle of the day to give a “progress report” and seek further direction. At the end of the day he would pray to express gratitude for all his blessings and to asses the day to figure out what went well and what did not.

I tried praying like this yesterday I found that my prayers were more meaningful and I was more conscious of how I behaved throughout the day. I will use this method of prayer more often.

Whose decision is it?

One important aspect of decision making is determining who the decision maker is and acting accordingly. If the decision is yours to make, you can accept advice from other people, but you should keep in mind that the decision is still yours to make. You can’t always please everyone with a decision you make, so you must simply say, “Thank you for your input, I will go make my decision now.”

Most of my life I have made decisions to please my parents. Sometimes this has resulted in me being unhappy with the consequences. I decided that in the future I would keep in mind that if the decision is ultimately mine, I wont make a decision simply to please my parents. I used this in a small decision last week when I had to choose between getting my homework done right away or going to hang out with friends. My mom strongly encouraged me to hang out with my friends since I had not seen them in a long time. I thanked her for her advice, and then instead of leaving right then to see my friends, I called one of them and scheduled another time to get together and I was able to finish my homework. I am glad that I remembered that the decision was mine to make because it led me to make a better decision that benefitted everyone.

Issue Paper Topic

I know this is really late, but I keep forgetting I have a blog!

For my paper I want to write about evolutionary psychology. It is an emerging field of psychology based on the idea that human behavior can be explained by evolution. People who behaved certain ways were more likely to survive and pass on their behavior traits to their children. There is a lot of controversy surrounding this issue, such as the debate as to whether or not evolutionary psychology can really be considered a science since there is no way to go back to prehistory and prove how people actually behaved. Another is that evolutionary psychology explains gender roles as being a result of evolution and it is therefore in our nature to fill those roles, instead of us conforming to society. It is a very interesting issue, but I'm not sure exactly how I should explore it in my paper...

Any ideas?

(For the record, I personally lean more toward the "nurture" explanation of human behavior. But I do find it interesting how people try to prove that "nature" is the only factor in determining behavior.)