There is a story about a girl who was known as being particularly sanguine and optimistic (two qualities that I do not possess to any great degree). Being someone always in a pleasant and happy mood, someone plotted a way to make her feel unhappy, so they gave others presents but decided to give her a large quantity of manure. Eagerly waiting to see her response, those expecting to see her upset were puzzled to find her placid and happy. Asking her why she felt this way, she replied, “There’s so much manure that there has to be a pony somewhere in here.” If only all of us could be so sanguine.

A few years ago I purchased a book that dealt with the subject of Abraham Lincoln’s melancholy. In our present day and age, we generally think highly of those who are sanguine. Those who are melancholy by nature tend to be thought of as Chicken Littles pronouncing that the sky is falling or being in general the sort of killjoys that are not exactly fun to be around. And though the United States is by no means the culture of the world that is the most oriented towards the fun (Thailand is even more so), as is often the case, different cultures value different temperaments at different times. Lincoln’s melancholy, a serious matter that he kept under some control by virtue of adopting a taste for humorous and homely and often off-color jokes and stories, proved to be useful when the tragedy of the Civil War swept up the United States, a tragedy that no amount of can-do spirit or sanguine optimism could truly comprehend.

Every personality and temperament, provided one is a person of good character and reasonable persistence, has a worthwhile place in the world. This does not necessarily mean that everyone will find their place, or that every place is one that people tend to recognize and honor, but rather that as people have a variety of strengths and weaknesses in a world that requires a wide variety of tasks and approaches, everyone has some kind of niche in the world. Finding it takes the development of one’s capabilities, a certain amount of persistence in the face of an indifferent to hostile world, and a certain amount of good fortune. So far in my life, my fortune has been less than benign, as might be easily imagined and understood.

By and large, I’m not the sort of person who likes to complain. If I mention a situation as a problem, it is already a significant issue, as anything that is insignificant I will either pass over in silence, deal with more or less stoically as is my fashion. I think I know other people for whom this is their way of dealing with matters as well, quietly and silently if at all possible, and vocally and strenuously if something is too big to handle with silence. Most of the time I try to find at least a wry and sardonic sense of humor about life, and in many cases my sardonic sense of humor is well-suited to the material I have to work with. I am reminded of one of my funniest jokes in the entire Harry Potter series, one where Harry Potter drily muses, “I wonder what it would be like to live a difficult life,” in way that I (and no doubt many others) would well understand.

So, as I approach one of my least favorite days of the year, I try to ponder what sort of areas of life are safe to make humor about. Generally speaking, I like to find humor in those areas of life that are not too deeply personal to myself or to others, since I tend to be a rather sensitive person myself about either teasing others, seeing others being teased, or being teased myself. Today I missed a change to pick cherries, for example, because a big order did not go through, and such opportunities have been rather rare in my life, I suppose. And so, my time on the internet for the day coming to a close, I ponder taking a leaf out of my blog entry from yesterday [1] and enjoying a free slurpee from 7-11 before doing some reading at home and relaxing while listening to one of my Pandora stations and musing on the ironies of life. There has to be a pony somewhere in here, after all.

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2013/07/10/free-hugs/