The Softer Side of Humor

Humor writing is a "funny" way to make a living. It's a reflection of the times and what people consider funny at the moment, and while it can have a quirkier, wilder, darker, or more eccentric side to it, the finest dialect humor has a kindness about it. The majority of all humor pokes fun at someone, which is what I suppose the curious "poke" button does on Facebook.  

"Hey, I'm poking you... wanna poke back?" 

I laugh a lot, I also dance, rollerblade, and burn cookies. Once everyone's stopped laughing about my burning the cookies, again, we're off on another lighthearted treasure hunt, waiting for the next person to spill their drink or slip on a banana peel...but all in good fun! 

Humor is softer and builds slower than wit, which is unexpected in its superiority. For me, humor doesn't need to assault the mind. It's nicer when a joke laughs its way into my heart. 

Humor doesn't analyze and probe like satire's critical eye, humor is warmly sympathetic, playful, sometimes lighthearted, and sometimes outrageously funny! Unlike the poisoned barb of satire and the killing point of wit, humor is healing. It's wholesome, creative, and rejuvenating. 

Like with everything, times change and so do moods. I don't always yearn for the softer side of humor, sometimes softer feels dull. That's when the more tacit or poignant encounters mesmerize my mind and allow me to release built-up tension, the more tension I was carrying, the stronger the likelihood I'll end up rolling on the floor in uncontrolled merriment.

Laughter is often equated to the compensatory reflex of the sneeze. Maybe that's where they get the saying, "That is nothing to sneeze about."  

I'm not entirely certain that humor alone can reach the dizzying heights of comic imagination, but a careful, Flaubertian-type writer could craft, sentence by sentence, and admirable swiftness of spinning words that ignite the softer side of us to come out and play. 

 And if that doesn't work

Cute photos of animals probably does the same trick