Living Within Samsara

Sarcasm
This is Part 4 of a 7 part series entitled “Words Can Harm. Words Can Heal.”

When I just meet someone I am usually on my best behavior. They usually may not find out I am a mouthful of facetious wit and cleverly worded humor until much later. Believe me when I say these articles are not who I am. :)

As I grow more and more familiar with them I may be tempted to dishonor the boundaries I clearly respected when I first met them. Maybe I have placed myself in a higher position on the food chain than they really have me or maybe something came out in such a way as I did not intend. Either way, I’m quite a pro at cleaning up my misspoken words because for the longest time I didn’t use them. I have a clear grasp of the fact that my spoken word is a lot more sloppy than my written and as a result of that knowing, I have no problem not using a filter when I speak. I have friends who claim they learn a lot from me and all these wonderful compliments and I’m as free as a bird and all is going beautifully until. UNTIL. I goof.

My beloved and I were in the store the other day renting movies and I decided that because I saw it and there was nothing to do and there it was, that I needed to talk about it - bring it to his attention. It didn’t occur to me a couple of things and that primarily A. We were checking out and the clerk was three feet in front of us and that B. Because I suffer from acute hearing I unintentionally speak louder than one probably would were they trying to keep things quiet. So I noticed it and I said it: “You know you have had this hair that is longer than all the other hairs and there it is in the middle of your lip. Want me to get it with my teeth?” His mouth didn’t move and his smile was still glued there as he said in a lower ventriloquist-like manner of voice: “Cn ee do dis later whn udder peohol arnt around?”

I have noticed a pattern in my life with certain people that because I relax my boundaries with them, or even allow a merging of boundaries with theirs, that some people have thought it would be an okay idea to say something particularly hurtful or to begin using sarcasm. Ouch. It hurts. It even hurts more because it’s coming from a person I now trust. Sarcasm is anger. Sarcasm is hurtful. Sarcasm is used when people can’t somehow be honest in their expression of anger. I think it’s passive aggressive coming out and deeply held resentments or anger. Sarcasm is not funny. Sarcasm is not flip. Sarcasm is not irony. Sarcasm is not facetious. Sarcasm is masked anger and it’s so mean and hurtful because it’s such a lie.

How many times has someone been sarcastic to you only to be confronted and they weakly proclaim it as a joke. That’s sarcasm. A coward’s tool and I have anger toward sarcasm and I cringe when I see it in any form. The root [sark] word of sarcasm from the Latin to the Greek sarkazein literally means “to cut a piece of flesh” and I don’t want anyone doing that to me. I was raised in sarcasm. Mouth saying one thing and actions doing another. Very confusing to a child.

Have you been sarcastic? Did you say “Good job!” to your child when she came in and showed you her 55 on his test? If she usually gets 30’s then this not the same thing. If she usually gets higher grades you probably meant that sarcastically? A countermeasure of health to this could be, “What happened? Want some help in math?”

Did someone explain their feelings on something and you said “AND?” Well that was sarcastic. That was sarcastic if they completed their sentence and were done. A countermeasure of healthy communication could either be a more honest, “I don’t care about that.” or a caring, “I’m sorry you feel that way. Let me think about it and get back to you on it?” When you said “AND?” weren’t you really hiding the fact, or so you thought, that you wanted to convey you could care less? Well. You not only conveyed that but you conveyed also that you couldn’t communicate honestly. To me, little else is more hurtful than trying to communicate honestly with someone and they invoke sarcasm.

Countermeasure to sarcasm is honest communication. And this takes practice if you were raised in a household where sarcasm was how you “played around” or communicated. If you catch yourself after you’ve relayed a sarcastic response, which I have done, you can immediately follow up with, “I’m sorry. That seemed to be sarcastic. Let me try that again.”

The Future: Practicing this comes right after awareness that we do it. Maybe it would be helpful if you even employed your friends or relatives in your endeavor to not be sarcastic. Sometimes it’s hard to see ourselves when we have been doing something for so long it has seemingly become who we are. Whenever I have just inadvertently bitten someone’s head off with sarcasm, my usual immediate follow-up is “I am sorry. I did not mean to say that!” And yes, I am genuinely shocked and appalled at myself when I do it.

Now, what happens when my sarcasm is followed by another person’s sarcasm is a different matter. Degradation of communication can happen at this point and this is why it is not good to answer like with like. Two wrongs will not make a right. Two wrongs make two wrongs. If you have been the victim of sarcasm a good response is always an honest one: “I didn’t appreciate that.” or “That was hurtful to me.” or as in our two previous examples: “And I wanted to share with you how I felt” and “Well I didn’t think it was such a good job.” As long as we never blame or shame the other person but keep the focus on “I” feel this and “I” think that “I”…we leave little margin for another person to perceive we are attacking them which brings us closer to our goal of healthy and effective communication.

Remember: If Words can harm, then Words can heal.

Tomorrow, in Part 5 of the 7 part series, “Gossip.”
Look for it Monday September 04, 2006.

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