"I prefer an interesting vice than a virtue that bores."
Molière
Humor unleashes this sort of metaphysically-drawn line between the reality for which we allow and the reality for which we delight in imagining. Humorous thinking breaks down the barriers that shield us from forming new ideas, or images and concepts of external objects and flights of fancy not present to our general senses. When we're in a humorous mood our mind gets more resourceful, its ability to be creative and imagine things, that until now did not exist in this dimension, increases a thousandfold.
"It infuriates me to be wrong when I know I'm right."
Molière
There's something inexpressibly charming about reading a humorously told adventure story; no doubt, the pleasure lies in the fact that it isn't lasting.
But for those few wonderful days while we suspend reality and give value to what we're reading or experiencing, we can simultaneously unleash the latches that bind our minds to a more pragmatic reality and harness and bring into action, should we choose, a humorous, delightfully sensational adventure of our own making.
We never exactly know what lies beyond the doors we close off in the name of seriousness. We don't know the sensational adventures we might otherwise experience until we release ourselves from the world of "have to" and "must do". Because we're so entrenched in the reality of the circumstances into which we're born, we rarely integrate what we've seen, read, or imagined and how it's changed us until we return home or to our usually scheduled programming.
When we get back, the fruit of our adventures stay with us. They change us. We laugh, we sing, we move about more freely, less encumbered. We return and purposely seek out that which lit our insides on fire... that which released us, giving us permission to take flight.
Exploring the world in search of good humor has served as a gateway to all the other worlds just waiting for me to walk through the proverbial wardrobe door... whether I'm reading adventure stories or going on an adventure of my own, whatever the seasoning of my inquiry, it is through that lens that I soar through the door... toward a new world, with new hopes and new dreams, new challenges and new adventures awaiting me.
It's funny, you know... how our thoughts, humorous or otherwise, lead us closer to the lives we rarely give ourselves permission to imagine...
As a species, I think most of us have mastered the art of doing for others... it's doing for ourselves that brings a good book to life.
"It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable."
Molière
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