Inconclusive Soul-Searching, with a smidge of Schizophrenia

Vignette #1: I was looking through old pictures from the past year on Josh's and my phones, and it brought back lots of warm fuzzies. Compared to 2012, which frequently felt like a roundhouse kick to the face from life, 2013 has been like a big hug. It's had lots of highlights. Reminiscing made me happy.

Vignette #2: I was playing around with the "what-would-i-say" app on facebook - it's a thing that generates a status for you based on what your previous statuses, comments, and messages have been. It jumbles your past phrases together and the combinations can be really funny. However, I noticed that at least a third of my automated statuses had the phrase "I hate" in them. "I hate how..." "I hate when..." "I hate that..." I'm sure most of those were hyperbole but still, it stung to see so much negativity in my reflections from the same time period.

Contrasting these two has scenarios has led me to some ridiculous, overly-analytical hand-wringing soul-searching. Usually my soul-searching takes the form of me playing devil's advocate with myself at a pace too rapid for my brain to keep track of the connections and eventually I lose interest with the argument or distract myself with technology. This is my attempt to document a sample back-and-forth in list form.

• All those "I hates"....they were taken out of context. It's just your personality to try to complain or be sarcastic in a funny way.
• Well, sarcasm is bad. The Ensign said so. 
• Sarcasm is bad when you use it to hurt other people, when it's merely observational about life you are just using your God-given wit. 
• Ok, but still that article made a lot of good points. Would it kill you to just be a little more positive? People like uplifting things. You like uplifting things. Positivity makes people's days better.
• Yeah but sometimes you just feel crappy and you want to express it. What's wrong with that? Sometimes the world is a terrible place, maybe not in your life but in many people's lives, and to put a shiny veneer of positivity over it can feel fake. Don't you get frustrated with all the airbrushed images of perfection out there? Sometimes it's more inspiring (or a least more relatable and therefore lovable) to be real, and sometimes sarcasm can be a useful tool to cut trenchantly through those airbrushed images.
• Touche. Fine. Anyway, at least you aren't sarcastic in a mean way with your kids, so who cares where else you deploy your sarcasm. If anything you smother those two with earnest, uncool love every day. 
• True. And George is too little to understand that it's not a term of endearment to be called "the cutest little dummy" for running into walls. When he is, he will probably be old enough to stop running into walls. 
• Actually maybe don't get too comfortable with your sarcasm. People use it on the internet all the time and call each other names and talk past each other and get in ridiculous epic comment wars -  
• UGH SAY NO MORE those are the worst. I changed my mind. It's nothing but positivity from me from here on out. Rainbows and puppies and rainbow-colored puppies. That's it. 
• You realize what you did just then was sarcastic. 
• Ugh again. Old habits die hard. Also complaining about things is fun if you turn it into something funny! Obviously just straight up complaining is boring. It is the worst. Everyone hates it because it is awful. 
• I think your problem may actually be an over-reliance on hyperbole as a form of expression. Didn't you read an article about that somewhere?
• Sort of related, yes, it was about irony. Dang, that was a good article. Here's to more unironic living, free of fake positivity but also of caustic complaining, just expressing real emotions and considered opinions. 
• Good grief, do you think this post is long and rambling enough yet? Do you even have a way to wrap up this nonsense? Who do you think you are, some kind of...long-article writer?
• There's that God-given wit.