If life was perfect, we wouldn't need irony.

If life was perfect we wouldn't need irony.  God gave us irony to deal with a reality that is sometimes intolerable and often annoying.  

What is irony?  Here are some dictionary definitions:

1. The expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect.
2. A state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result.

For the true ironist that doesn't come close. Good irony is a powerful weapon. It's a stand-off.  You on one side - the offending reality on the other.  You say, "I'm going to take you down."

If we had the time to sit around and think about life, some of us would be a little bitter.  God didn't want a group of bitter people so He thought,  I'll give that group irony.  If they can make fun of everything they'll be fine. What do I care?  I made them, too, you know.  So who is the ironist here?

The dictionary gives these synonyms for irony: sarcasm, cynicism, sardonicism. I don't think so.

Sarcasm is crude.  Irony is exquisite.  There is no hope in cynicism.  Irony on the other hand is optimistic.  It's problem solving.  Look,  here's a way to turn this around and make it fun.

Sardonicism a word only used in old historical novels, is more like sarcasm.

There are people who never use or have a need of irony.  They see life as a sunny, faith driven garden of delight.   I don't discount this one bit.  It can happen. I know how to talk to these people and even like them.  I park my irony at the door and engage sincerely.

On the other hand,  when two ironists meet and recognize each other, it is a  sight to behold. They will go back and forth, giggling and nodding.  I have a friend who comes to my house when he can't find irony anywhere else.  It's like going to your favorite pizza joint.  You need a fix, a compass point, to set your path and send you back into the world.

There is a store near me called The Irony.  It's on a highway and not easy to visit but I wanted to see what I would find there.  Would there be bins with menus of ironic statements for all of life's vicissitudes? Alas, no.  They make decorative fences, gates and objects out of metal.

"Like everyone else, I am being tortured to death" Redux.

(I'm re-posting this entry because it is that time of the year when we take stock.  By the way, my house is no longer dusty - I've had it repainted and repaired. Hey, wait.  How did that happen?)

Change One Thing is the name of a book you don’t have to read.  The title tells you everything.  Oh, you mean if I brush my teeth starting right to left instead of left to right, all the molecules in my makeup will shift and start a domino sequence and I’ll be a different person with different experiences and nothing will be the same in this dusty overheated house?

Yep. That’s pretty much it.

Hmmm.  I could almost buy that idea because I believe in causality.  If you do something different, your inner dopey baby sits up and fusses for a long time but finally it gives up and goes to sleep.

Here’s the thing about change:  it’s shy and shrinks back.  You won’t notice anything unless you keep a detailed diary and track your behavior.  One day, you are living a different life and it seems natural not some seismic personal restructuring like St. Paul experienced on the Damascus Road.

Does change automatically outpicture your wish list?  If you’re like me you won’t remember what you wished for yesterday.  It’s hard to decide what you want unless it’s specific like a better respiratory experience or a working light at the top of the basement stairs. Before I got up this morning I tried to dig up what I really wanted and could not come up with anything.  Maybe a new mattress. Maybe you'd like a different state of mind, I coaxed.  No, I like my muddled state of mind.  It clears up once in a while. Maybe more success?  No, I'm sick of success. 

There was a line in a poem by Carl Sandberg that used to be my favorite. “I’m a sucker for things the way they are.”  Now I know that’s a mean thing to say, Carl. You have to fight thoughts like that.  I’m not an ingénue anymore.  The sentiment sounds ironic and fey but it’s time to park the irony at the door and look at your life circumstances with grown up convictions and grown up expectations. Really?

Another snippet of poetry that stuck to me like a barnacle and became my mantra for a few years: “Like everyone else I am being tortured to death.” This thought might have some traction if we believe that life’s entire struggle for everyone is overcoming childhood.  Or even before childhood - at the distribution of the dna that made our future  a done deal.

Today, as I sit writing this post, I choose to believe that life as a struggle is an irrelevant idea.  “Struggle” is just another word.  Start brushing your teeth from a different starting point and see if anything happens.

Hey, as I’m about to close I realize that one year ago I wouldn’t have parted with irony for all the happiness in the world.

How I Learned to Talk: A blog in two parts.

Part One:

Meredith F. Small, an anthropologist, says our “social intelligence” is what has made humans such a successful species." We recognize and keep track of hundreds of relationships, and we easily distinguish between enemies and friends.”  We run our lives by social calculation and most of it revolves around talking.

 I used to think talking was just opening your mouth and letting sounds come out.  There are unintended consequences to this type of lazy talking and now I take it seriously.  I found it best to segregate the things I talk about with different people. 

Here are a couple of examples:  My friend Meg validates that I am a regular person because I act and talk regular around her. I have my Meg package:  I can talk about trouble but I keep it light.  I park the irony at the door. 

The only things I can say to Hannah are: Do you have a good plumber? or  How do you like your new car?  I stopped telling Hannah anything when I realized that her reaction was going to be out of all proportion to what I was telling her.  If I said I got some freelance work she would scream (yes, scream) what?  What kind of work? And then pepper me with about fifty questions that I didn’t have the answer to and then question my decision.

The woman who checks me out at Waldbaum’s always asks if I’m going back to my country for the Holidays.  I just say yes.

I try not to tell my children anything about my life that doesn’t end with: “it’s great.”

It’s easier to wrap your mind around talking that works if you separate it into five main categories: 

Pleasantries:  (best kept to a sentence or two) Nice day. Nice lawn.  How's the wife.  Cute kid.  If you go beyond the second sentence, you will be embroiled in a pointless conversation that will be hard to end.

Informational talk:  “Mrs. McNaughton you'd better sit down for this.  We hear seven distinct heartbeats.”   When you are receiving information, don’t be tempted to interject irony or humor or even sarcasm.  Just say, “I see.”    

Self-serving talk.    “I had no knowledge of any dummy corporations being set up at Enron to divert money.”  Don’t refute the speaker even if what he/she is saying is blatantly false.  If it is something that alters your finances, just take it to a lawyer.

Inquisitorial talk:  “Jeffrey, what do you mean when you say you like to cut up people?”  If there’s nothing else you learn about talking, learn to answer what is asked with no elaboration.  If someone asks, “Did you eat the last piece of pie?” a yes or no will suffice.

Confidential talk:  If you are hell bent on confiding, become a Catholic and go to confession or talk to your mirror.  This will spare you confessional remorse.

In the next day or two:  How I learned to talk Part II.