Dry Wit

You ever have that problem where people don’t know if you’re joking or serious? I have that problem every day. It’s kinda cool. Keeps people off balance. I like to think I have a dry wit, although I’m sure other people have less pleasant names for it. My favorite TV shows — Buffy, Angel, Farscape — somewhat share this characteristic. Characters are constantly reflecting on the world around them with a healty dose of cynicism. Jokes, rather then overblown and obvious, are quietly snuck in where you least expect them. Every line has untapped potential.

I think my favorite professors are the ones who use the approach, who kind of question everything just through their tone and their word choice, who constantly keep you atuned to sheer strangeness of the world. I think that this approach is what draws me to Discordianism, a worldview (or is it a religion?) then emphasises the sheer strangeness, unpredictibility, and randomness of the world around us.

And I find my approach to speaking helpful in that so many times I am ambivalent about things and, instead of needed to take a strong stand through my speaking, I am able to talk and act in a way that portrays, I think, my ambivalence, so that even as I say one thing it can be seen that I may not quite believe it.

This whole thing is very difficult to describe, I’m not sure I’m doing a very good job. I keep re-writing sentences, and I’m not sure I’m making them any clearer. But then again, this meta-commentary is probably even less helpful. And this meta-meta commentary can’t be much better. And this meta-meta-meta…

Anyway, I noticed the other day in the game room that Dave W kinda acts the same way as I do, and that’s what prompted me to try to get this into words. He said something and I stopped and thought, wow, I have no idea if he is serious or not. Now I know how so many people feel about me!

Ya know, it’s hard to talk through text the same way as I do in person. I guess that’s why I use smilies so much. 😉 And it probably explains why I hate personal confrontations, and much prefer to have them in textual form…because I’m probably not very good at reading what people are thinking, unless they express themselves the same way I do. Sometimes text can make things much more clear. Sometimes, quite the opposite. I’m not really sure what I’m saying, or what conclusions I can draw from all of this.

Stuff to ponder.

One reply on “Dry Wit”

  1. Wow. So that’s what dry wit is. Thank you, even though you said several times that you were unsure of getting the message across, I understand completely (or at least, I think I do). My teachers say I have a dry wit. Now I know what they are talking about. Be proud, this is a privilege, I think, I hope. Thank you.

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