What's so funny?
Laughter is the reward of being human, but it is also the price. Humor comes from the misfortune of others. Every single time from the explosion of the shotgun into Daffy’s face to ironic smirk of the Stand Up Comedian, someone is taking a punch. So with that said, over time our Western Culture has decided what is appropriately funny and what it isn’t. It’s ok to laugh at some a Darwin Award nominee who puts a Lava Lamp in the oven and dies because it explodes sending a shard of glass into his heart, but other subjects are taboo.
I’m saying my Man-tra that “Today I do no harm”, as well as “I laugh at myself, and at you too…sorry.” And that’s the way that I feel. I will laugh at you because I am laughing at myself. Life, because of its tragedy is comedic. I/we laugh because we identify with the hurt, shame and embarrassment, or to frighten off the Boogie Man. But occasionally the “Do no harm” comes into conflict with “Laughing at you”.
More brief flashback: My stepfather and his brother ran to South America avoiding prison for real-estate fraud. Later, after my mother was set-up for a drug bust by plea-bargaining mercenary, my stepfather was forced to come back to the United States. His brother, left with no money somehow managed to commit suicide while under guard. Later, I discover an experimental jazz ensemble names the band after dead brother, and put out an independent CD with a picture on the cover along with a photo of the building where he jumped.
I am telling this story to my therapist when he tells me, “That’s sick!” I just look at him, and he asks, “You don’t think that’s sick?”
“No,” I reply, “I think it’s humorous. Just dark, black, BLACK humor. I believe that just because I laugh at something so absurd when it happens to other people doesn’t mean I shouldn’t laugh when it happens to me. And while I think it’s funny, I hope his family never finds out. Let that tree fall in the forest.”
So me, I’m amused by this story, and am telling my co-workers, while conveniently leaving out the detail of the Shrink. They know none of the back-story, which I inform them, and I forget, this is a story I know well, but hearing it from the outside is pretty fucked up.
I wrap up my tale, and my co-worker Val looks ashen and, says “Jesus, I need to go the bathroom, I think I’m gonna get sick.” And she proceeds to tell me that while I couldn’t possibly know it, just last week she had to put her cat, aged 21, down on the 7th anniversary of her mother’s death by suicide.
Do no harm…that’s my wish for the day, but she’s pretty freaked out by my story and really doesn’t find it that amusing. Things are smoothed over with a physical joke of me putting my foot in my mouth and a piece of carrot cake.
I do and I don’t feel bad. It’s wasn’t her mother I was making fun of, and I didn’t know. Alessandra was not the least amused by my telling of this incident later on that evening.
“Death is not funny. Ever.” She tells me.
But it is. We have at laugh at the Reaper; it’s a safety release. I have mentioned this here before and it will come up again. My father lost the family business; the bank foreclosed on his house, while he was out back scooping leaves off the pool he fell in and drowned. A lot is said about how he got into the pool: loose brickwork, heart attack, was he dead before he hit the water? Did he hit is head? All kinds of stuff. Then the observer realizes as I tell my story that he had a swimming pool for over 20 years and didn’t know how to swim. And that point, I have to laugh because it never once occurred to me that he would ever fall in the pool and drown. I picture him floating in the deep end on a raft, summer after summer, never realizing that if he let go, it would be all over for him.
Life is absurd, you gotta laugh or you cry. And at the same time, I had hurt someone’s feelings, and I feel bad about it, but like I said…there were no hard feelings, and the carrot cake, I hear, was pretty good. It’s possible to experience contradictory things and not feel the friction of the anxiety. I’m working very hard at being MAN and taking responsibility for my actions. I accept I may have hurt someone’s feelings, and did my best to make amends, while still being true to my vision of my self.
I’m saying my Man-tra that “Today I do no harm”, as well as “I laugh at myself, and at you too…sorry.” And that’s the way that I feel. I will laugh at you because I am laughing at myself. Life, because of its tragedy is comedic. I/we laugh because we identify with the hurt, shame and embarrassment, or to frighten off the Boogie Man. But occasionally the “Do no harm” comes into conflict with “Laughing at you”.
More brief flashback: My stepfather and his brother ran to South America avoiding prison for real-estate fraud. Later, after my mother was set-up for a drug bust by plea-bargaining mercenary, my stepfather was forced to come back to the United States. His brother, left with no money somehow managed to commit suicide while under guard. Later, I discover an experimental jazz ensemble names the band after dead brother, and put out an independent CD with a picture on the cover along with a photo of the building where he jumped.
I am telling this story to my therapist when he tells me, “That’s sick!” I just look at him, and he asks, “You don’t think that’s sick?”
“No,” I reply, “I think it’s humorous. Just dark, black, BLACK humor. I believe that just because I laugh at something so absurd when it happens to other people doesn’t mean I shouldn’t laugh when it happens to me. And while I think it’s funny, I hope his family never finds out. Let that tree fall in the forest.”
So me, I’m amused by this story, and am telling my co-workers, while conveniently leaving out the detail of the Shrink. They know none of the back-story, which I inform them, and I forget, this is a story I know well, but hearing it from the outside is pretty fucked up.
I wrap up my tale, and my co-worker Val looks ashen and, says “Jesus, I need to go the bathroom, I think I’m gonna get sick.” And she proceeds to tell me that while I couldn’t possibly know it, just last week she had to put her cat, aged 21, down on the 7th anniversary of her mother’s death by suicide.
Do no harm…that’s my wish for the day, but she’s pretty freaked out by my story and really doesn’t find it that amusing. Things are smoothed over with a physical joke of me putting my foot in my mouth and a piece of carrot cake.
I do and I don’t feel bad. It’s wasn’t her mother I was making fun of, and I didn’t know. Alessandra was not the least amused by my telling of this incident later on that evening.
“Death is not funny. Ever.” She tells me.
But it is. We have at laugh at the Reaper; it’s a safety release. I have mentioned this here before and it will come up again. My father lost the family business; the bank foreclosed on his house, while he was out back scooping leaves off the pool he fell in and drowned. A lot is said about how he got into the pool: loose brickwork, heart attack, was he dead before he hit the water? Did he hit is head? All kinds of stuff. Then the observer realizes as I tell my story that he had a swimming pool for over 20 years and didn’t know how to swim. And that point, I have to laugh because it never once occurred to me that he would ever fall in the pool and drown. I picture him floating in the deep end on a raft, summer after summer, never realizing that if he let go, it would be all over for him.
Life is absurd, you gotta laugh or you cry. And at the same time, I had hurt someone’s feelings, and I feel bad about it, but like I said…there were no hard feelings, and the carrot cake, I hear, was pretty good. It’s possible to experience contradictory things and not feel the friction of the anxiety. I’m working very hard at being MAN and taking responsibility for my actions. I accept I may have hurt someone’s feelings, and did my best to make amends, while still being true to my vision of my self.
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