There was a recent column by Ted Lehman about comedy in bluegrass, and it got me thinking about humor in general.
At any given time on your life, you could be faced with very tough times and wonder how you can go on. Depending on your frame of mind, small problems may seem huge – a straw breaking the camel’s back. And there are certainly times when you must deal with truly awful events. A sense of humor can make a world of difference.
This doesn’t mean you treat life as a joke – even though it will sometimes treat you as one. Humor is a powerful coping mechanism, and it can be very subtle (and wry) or it can allow you to view events from a perspective wholly different than your first inclination.
Dark humor, if you can handle it, can be cathartic. After my mom had her first heart attack, I called her a few days later from work to check on her. “Mom? This is Bruce – BOO!” My co-workers were appalled,, but my mother laughed.
My family has always embraced fairly dark humor and it’s served us well. There are moments that call for grave seriousness, but they are few and don’t tend to last that long. When my mother passed away, it was far better to laugh at the many hilarious times we had together than to focus on the loss. It’s two ways of viewing the same event – rejoice in the wonderful memories, or bemoan the loss. I miss her every day, but I also think of all the fun.
Not everyone is “good” at humor, but I think everyone has some sense of humor. For some, creating humor is more natural, just like the ability to tell a joke, which was a big part of Ted’s column. It IS fun for the audience if a band can make humorous asides, or spin a witty tale. But if no one in the band has a knack for it, it’s darn hard to fake it, and attempts to do so make be darn hard to watch.
I have a lot of respect for those who do humor for a living. You have to be very clever, inventive and endure the inevitable times when the humor doesn’t work. I can recall countless times when a joke of mine fell flat, or worse, turned out to be spectacularly ill-timed. It’s the constant danger in trying to be funny – sooner or later you fail miserably, and embarrass yourself, and sometimes make people feel bad – a complete backfire.
Reader’s Digest said laughter is the best medicine, and I think that’s true. Laugh early, laugh often. Or, what’s the other cliche? “Laugh, and the world laughs with you.”
