Have you got one? And if yes, what do you make of it? If no, why do you think that is?
Personally, I think mine is a blessing. Apart from allowing me to get on with people quite well on the average(and getting me in trouble on more occasions that I care to mention), it always eases my point of contact with the world. Something bad happened? Oh well, I’ll just think about it and usually turn the problem on its head and laugh about it(and often get a useful inside or a work-around for the problem). It’s like constant later drifting. My sense of humour doesn’t let me get stuck on something. It’s great.
And when I meet people that are slow or have underdeveloped sense of humour, I cannot help but feel sorry for them. How do they cope with this crazy random unpredictable universe of ours without a sense of humour is beyond my understanding. And sometimes there are people who understand a joke and even like to have a laugh, but they feel the need to stop things that are “silly”. Telling you to act your age or to be more serious or whatever. Sometimes I understand them, like when there’s a need to keep up with the time-table in class or whatever, but sometimes they’re just being silly themselves by telling you to be serious, if you know what I mean.
Please explain your views and share your experiences.
The best part of getting older is that people don’t tell you to act your age anymore. Being silly is more acceptable. Possibly because you learn the boundaries with age or maybe they just give up on trying to tame us. Most likely, people in general like to laugh.
My mind is almost constantly looking for the funny side of every situation. It has been terrific over the years. Having a great sense of humor makes life so much more fun.
When I’m talking sometimes I get excited and start waving my arms and talk incoherently in a somewhat skeaky voice and giggle at the same time and people laugh but I’m not sure if that counts as a sense of humor…
Now first we have to define a sense of humour. And it has ( at least ) two sides.
Firstly there is the ability to see a joke. Did you understand it? How quickly did you see it? Or are you only joining in the giggle because everyone else is laughing …and face it, laughter is certainly infectious. Some people seem to be able to laugh loudly at very weak content. Are they also able to see the deeper jokes? Does humour have a “class” system? Some comedians seem to think that their comedy rating is directly proportional to the amount of bad language they use. How funny would they be if their adjectives were a little more restricted? But then again sometimes the undeleted expletive can add to the joke.
Secondly there is the ability to do or say something funny unrehearsed. Were you quick enough off the mark in what you said? Did others find it funny, how quickly did they see it, was it too subtle for most? Was it just plain stupid rather than funny? Does humour HAVE to be clever? This second category is NOT the ability to tell a joke, but rather the ability to be quickly creative in conversation, or rather less speedily creative in print.
Are sitcoms funny? Or just entertaining? How funny? Who is their humour aimed at? Someone with a sophisticated sense of humour? Or Joe Average? Does the watcher see ALL the jokes, or just the “easy” ones? Or is the humour too blunt and obvious for some watchers? The canned laughter adds the infectious element: tells some when to laugh, and makes it all seem funnier than it really is. Analyse these sitcoms: and how many are really funny? How many would stand up without the canning process? I think very few are really that good. But can humour stand up to analysis in any case…explaining a joke never really works.
There are other important things:
The ability to laugh at yourself: until you can do this I don’t think you are really entitled to laugh AT others.
The ability to see that a joke is meant as a joke, and not to see it as a politically incorrect statement, or a sign of religious or racial intolerance. I view this as very important for the future of comedy. As more and more categories of jokes are “banned”, so the growing medium becomes less fertile, and the suppression of comedy , which is in general good for us, will continue and make life and laughter less enjoyable. It is possible to tell jokes with no reference to mother-in-laws, but are you then playing with a deck minus the ace of spades?
