Getting a Sense of Humor

essaysbysean.blogspot.com

Prologue

I remember sitting next to a guy from Manhattan, during Free Fall writing, when our “prompt” was “humour.” I leaned over to say, “That’s  “o-u-r”” Everyone along the table burst out laughing, without me having to say another word: they all knew what the joke was; everybody knows Yankees spell wrong, leaving out the “u” in humour, and other words too.

Hello Reader,

Got humour?

Preface

While traditionally the national spotlight has been on how physical health impacts our national economy, what about mental health? Everyone knows laughter is the best medicine.

Then surely an essay on “humour” can help my fellow citizens. Wait—Let me spell that word without the “u;” let’s avoid stressing my Yankee spellcheck machine. Besides, what’s a little “u” between friends? We North Americans tend to practical and quick with our spelling—the British, not so much.

Sense of Humor

Everyone knows God stuck us with different hair colors and textures. Most people, if they ever thought about it, would assume we are each stuck with differing degrees of humor too. Nope. You can dye your hair, tweak your style, and you can tweak your humor style too. Sure you can! It can help to have a foundation theory first, and then you may tweak from there. I call this foundation theory, “getting a sense of humor.”

I know whereof I speak, for while I was getting a degree in Community Disabilities, I had to take a business 101 course. Having already learned more management than I’ll ever need, I chose something different for my term paper: “Humor in the Business World.” My campus library was well wired up: Instead of going to the card catalogue to search for magazine titles, and then going to search for the specific paper magazines, I could download and print off complete articles from various business magazines of recent years. Cool, eh?  

Reading those articles, two things stood out to me.

ONE: Although it seems all the other business articles are “supposed to be” written with heavy, serious “professionalism,” these ones were invariably light and funny.

TWO: They all start out apologizing for their topic, saying “It’s OK,” and giving the readers permission to be funny. Why did this sound so familiar to me? …I wondered, then—Oh yes, I’m old enough to remember the sexual revolution. Note to couples everywhere: Your naked bodies are clean, not dirty. It’s OK.

(Incidentally, as regards better profit from better humor, see Southwest Airlines) So there I was, in my dusty university classrooms, learning about how to teach handicapped people things they would do well to know, if they wished to happily fit into society. We called it “mainstreaming” because our learned Yankee cousins were twitchy about the word “integration.” What we were taught, with all due respect to our professors, was that people learn best not from classrooms but from “role modeling.”

So here’s your sound bite conclusion: "Permission" and "role modelling." Are we done? No, not unless you believe that summaries and sound bites are as good as an essay. If you do believe so, poor sap, then maybe you should just run along and become a computer nerd, spending your life skimming your screen when you could just as well be reading it, and be reading real books too. Woody Allen skimmed War and Peace. He said it’s something about Russia.

Let’s expand this essay. It’s instructive to study an anti role model, such as a young fellow on a popular culture TV show that’s been running for years. A scientist. You guessed it: Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory. On this award-winning situation comedy, or sitcom, the situation is that Sheldon is “humor challenged.” And he knows it. Sometimes he’ll do a forced, “Ha…ha.” Sometimes, “That was a joke.” And sometimes, if he thinks he’s pulled one off, “Bazzinga!” You may have seen the T-shirts. If he can have a Ph.D, then why can’t he have humor too?

Why?… Consider his childhood. Sheldon, unfortunately, was disliked for being a nerd. If he therefore spent his time away from other kids in laboratories and libraries, (But never skimming) then he would have missed many chances to role model. As for permission, Sheldon, unfortunately, had a strict religious mother. To explain the psychological fallout, just imagine yourself working in a big corporation with a really cranky boss. Re-e-e-ally cranky. There you are, being funny with two co-workers, when you glimpse the boss coming down the hall. You look to their eager faces, then you look towards the oncoming boss. Joke or boss? You probably shut down, and slink off to find some work to do. In fact, normally, you probably would avoid smiling too much, lest Cranky-pants notice, and have you transferred to the branch office in Alaska.

But now Sheldon’s an adult. He can give himself permission to model off of his young fellow scientists. Or can he? If imitation, and modeling too, is the sincerest form of flattery, then it kinda, sorta, follows that we only model off people we like and respect. Poor Sheldon: He thinks he’s better than his peers, he’s not humble; he’s self absorbed too, he’s not kind. In his unfortunate situation: No modeling is possible. Of course some folks are intense about science—and that’s OK—just like how other folks are intensely into self-improvement. That’s OK. But if an intense person can’t look outwards? Then the bust-a-gut effort just ain’t worth it: the prognosis for humor is not good.

What Sheldon doesn’t realize, in his intense lifestyle, is that even Eagle Scouts, working so hard on self-improving their number of merit badges, will also look to “secretly do someone a good turn every day.” Even wretched recovering alcoholics will look to do their “Step Twelve,” helping others who are still suffering—lest they suddenly crave the bottle. Sheldon? He really enjoys his collection of Star Trek memorabilia… with no clue that “it is better to give than to receive.” He’s oblivious—and he can’t do jokes. Coincidence?

“Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch” (Old TV cliché)

There’s a country-and-western song, now playing on better radio stations, where a father is advising his son, “Remember to always be humble and kind.” (Tim McGraw) Keep it in mind, for now, as we’ll be getting back to it.

When I was living in town, not on a ranch, but in sight of the Calgary Stampede grounds, long before I ever went to university or ever worked with any disabled person, I met someone. A staff person. Who invited me for tea and cookies. At a group home. With mentally handicapped people in wheelchairs.

So there I was, a future university scholar, wearing my blue Star Trek shirt, like Science Officer Spock—and being qui-i-i-te serious. Maybe, at most, I could summon up enough emotion to say, with my mouth in a straight line, “Fascinating.” I walk in. I sit down. You may remember a white funny T-shirt from those long ago days, with a blond in the foreground biting her lip in distress while in the background a party is roaring. She is thinking, “Oh my God, those people are partying like there’s no tomorrow!”

I walk in, “Oh my God, these people are laughing like there’s—.” They are joking; seeing the bright side of things; putting on a positive spin; laugh after laugh… You would have loved it, I’m sure, to see those poor-little-handicapped having such a rip-roaring good time. Wait, did I tell you I sat down? No, I couldn’t, for there weren’t any kitchen chairs (work with me, here) So I knelt. They say, “A man never stands so tall as when he kneels to help a child.”

I knelt, eye level, amongst the laughter… I humbly opened my heart, kindly thinking, “How can I bear to be be an uptight Mr. Spock, when that’s not what these guys need right now?” … (They also needed small talk)

You know the problem with making eye contact? You better not have self-esteem issues, because it means someone is looking right back at you. For a second I worried, “Oh God, do they know I haven’t dusted the warp drive coils?” But then I remembered: I’m trying to always be humble and kind here, like in the song. If I’m humble, then I don’t have any grand expectations that my coils will be dusted and shiny-polished. Therefore? I can’t be hurt. Besides, who can focus inward on being hurt and outward on being kind, both at the same time? (No one, especially not if they are trying to use a laser pointer.) The nice thing about being low-to-the-ground? If you tip over you have nowhere to fall.

Would you believe I told why the chicken crossed the road and why firemen wear red suspenders? Actually, no, I didn’t. We didn’t tell any prepared jokes: Life itself is funny enough, if you look at it slant.

Parting Concepts

So that’s it. My two specific concepts are “have permission” and “role model,” under the two umbrella concepts of being “humble” and “kind.”

One last Concept: I find humor helps me navigate a world that is just not as black and white as “it’s supposed to be.” And since Sheldon is from Texas, and I’m on a country and western theme just now, let me end by saying I am still chuckling, decades later, over a cunning old man in the western movie, The Outlaw Josey Wales. Now, I meant “navigate” as a metaphor, but this scruffy old fellow actually has to navigate a river—right between the blue and the grey, the union and the confederacy, the North and South—just when the boys on both sides of the river are standing there with their guns.  Actually the war has just ended, but they still have their guns. Of course they do, they aren’t in Canada, Toto.

Specifically, the old man runs a ferry, using an overhead rope and pulley, like a really big clothesline. He crams Josey Wales and his horse into the ferry with him. Then the cheerful man starts pulling them all across—after collecting his money in advance. Josey is a southerner, so old man gives a rousing rendition of, “Oh I wish I was in the land of cotton…” He catches his breath midstream, grins, and starts up “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord…” I think the old survivor had a terrific sense of humor, don’t you?

Sean Crawford

Trying to keep a straight face

around my Yankee friends,

from Maine to Miami,

who believe in polarized politics,

March, 2017 A.—wait … A.D. or A.C.E.? (After Common Era)

Hey, if I can take out that “u” from humour, then I can take out that blasted “E” too!

in 2017 A.D.


Footnotes:
~You can be taught the Pythagorus theorem in two seconds, to learn how to think rigourously takes time: Hence our teacher had us re-invent the theorem. This essay is to give you the theorem, but it takes some processing-time to be comic-wise in everyday life... Drop me a line, Sheldon, and tell me how this works out for you.

~Update: I meant my blue Spock shirt as a joke, but last week I was in Edmonton, at a comic book store, and—there really is such a thing, now, as a Spock shirt. Man, our economy gets more affluent every day!
(I was looking for the Doctor Who Apollo astronaut, from the fate of the 11th doctor. No luck. So I went all the way to London, to the BBC Who Store. Still no luck)

~Free Fall Fridays has to break with the tradition of being open on Good Friday because we won't be able to get into our own building, the City of Calgary's new Creative Space ...how uncreative is that?