Seriousness is the property of your work / expertise
You yourself are not really “serious” or “not serious”
You’re serious only as far as it pertains to that particular subject
(You at best approach all things with similar seriousness
But naturally that is not enough to make you a serious operator / expert in all of them)
And this is why I’m sceptical of self-serious people
Self-serious pundits
Self-serious experts
Self-serious personas
If you noticed, most VERY serious people are not actually very self-serious
They are not clowns either
But they don’t attempt to create an extra respectable appearance, veneer
And they don’t bicker over how serious they are and how important
Because when you’re a serious operator in a serious field — your work speaks for you
And because when others consider you an authority — they also speak for you
So there is no room left or point for you to be self-serious
To try to assert your seriousness
It would actually quite undermine you
Makes you look like you’re not that serious after all — or are overplaying your position
Indeed, when an actually serious operator / expert is acting self-serious — it’s when he has already ventured out beyond his domain / expertise
He now has to CONVINCE others of his expertise
It’s no longer self-evident
He has to advertise it
And of course the extreme case is well-known:
In show-business — everything is a show
So it’s all about SHOWING others how SERIOUS you are, what a big fucking deal you are
And of course it’s always empty
A serious businessman is running his business, fortune 500 company, not a fucking talk show
A serious scientist is actually trying to understand the universe, or save lives — not explaining it to you fucking midwits
A serious artist just creates — he couldn’t care less if you think it’s great stuff or not. If you decided what is good for him then he wouldn’t be an artist, would he?
Of course this is not an absolute rule
Some very serious people are also quite self-serious, for whatever reasons. Maybe they feel unloved
And of course I’m not advocating for false modesty, or any modesty. Speak what you think is true,
This is only an observation that SERIOUSNESS and SELF-SERIOUSNESS are different things
And the latter can often be a red flag