If you haven’t already, please read the introduction post. That will give you context for this page.
I guess I could have rolled this in with the intensity thing, but I don’t think that being intense and being serious are necessarily the same things. Intensity is, if you will, things turned up to maximum, or at least turned up higher than most people consider typical. But serious…You know, I have a pretty robust sense of humour. And a silly streak for which I’ve been shamed. But not everything is funny and some things shouldn’t be taken lightly. Or there’s a right time and place to take them lightly.
I feel the weight of causality. The choices I make set off a string of events, and they build the future I have to live.
I feel the weight of sacred things and of tender things. Someone once told me that, “if you want something to last forever, you treat it differently.†And there are things I want to hold above the lightness of daily talk or the scuffing of even my own careless shoes.
There are pieces of me that I couldn’t see trusting to someone who couldn’t take them as seriously as I need. And, whilst I don’t expect others to be serious in the ways and about the things where my own seriousness is rooted, I am keenly aware that I there’s a degree of seriousness about the right things that is necessary for me to trust people.
How much time can I take with my answer? You might want to get comfy…
So, yeah, I can be quite serious. I’d say that the times I’ve been accused of being too serious, shamed for my seriousness, it was either due to things that deserve seriousness (so, no, I won’t feel ashamed of what I deem appropriate seriousness) or my brain being a bit scrambled for whatever reason (low blood sugar, sensory overwhelm, a run of bad experiences, etc) and I missed the joke. Even in the latter case, I’m sorry if my reaction was rude (as opposed to just not the reaction you wanted), but I’m not ashamed that life happened and momentarily ate my humour or that our senses of humour don’t align. Really, I feel sorry for me-at-that-time, not ashamed.
The accusations (too intense! too serious! too silly) often come from the same people. Honestly, Goldilocks, it’s possible I’m just not the right bowl of porridge for you. (From experience, it seems I’ve got bites that are too hot and bites that are too cold and some that might be just right sometimes…Maybe just leave me for the bears if it bothers you as much as it seems to bother some people. It’s okay. There are bowls out there that will make your mouth happier than me, and bears who find me delightful.)
Cross-posted to the Not Ashamed section of my site (so that it’s all tidy).