# PonderIt

## Tuesday, June 20, 2006

### Sarcasm: Sucker of Joy

One temptation that I'm particularly vulnerable to is the tendency to sarcasm. It was a significant part of my youth. It is a cheap (and easy) form of humor that doesn't really lift us up. I have found that as sarcasm increases, joy decreases. I don't think that happiness and sarcasm can exist in the same place at the same time. If you are unhappy, perhaps you can try what I did: decrease your use of sarcasm.

#### 3 Comments:

- I am grateful that I am not as judgmental as all those censorious, self-righteous people around me.

  By Sardonic Sam, at 6/21/2006 4:20 AM

- Bradley, I agree. I think that there are times when light sarcasm can be used to diffuse a tense situation or to highlight (as in a teaching moment) something that should be obvious. But I have found that cutting sarcasm, especially the kind that seems to satisfy the prideful intellectual part of my psyche, is spiritually harmful.

  By Reach Upward, at 6/21/2006 5:52 AM

- I couldn't agree more. I tend to be a bit sarcastic myself, just because, as you said, it's an easy way to be humorous. But it is often cutting, sometimes denigrating, and almost always at somebody else's expense. That's why I try to cut back...

  By Anonymous, at 6/26/2006 2:50 PM

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