Humor Reunites

Just as Country Western music takes away one's truck, loved ones, and faculties when exposed to it, so too does seriousness, which drives people deep into their respective pain bubbles rather than uniting them in freeing laughter.

Some of the pleasures we seek as a species are clear and immediately intelligible. Here, we don't have to wait for the end of the song to be reunited with our truck, loved ones, and faculties.

The use of humor can be somewhat difficult to understand. Sigmund Freud, in his Civilization and its Discontents, gave voice to a pessimistic view of the human condition, one in which human beings are fated to live in a state of unhappiness, alone and desperate in their discontent, seeking out prayer, therapy, or intoxicants as a release from their misery. 

No wonder the guy is the 'butt' of so many jokes. 

The pains associated with "life," as described by Freud, are magnified by a basic feature of the human condition: our pursuit of happiness as the goal of life. 

"What decides the purpose of life is simply the programme of the pleasure principle." 

~Sigmund Freud

The primary process of mind that drives us to seek pleasure and avoid pain is inherent in our molecular programming. In this respect, our desire for happiness could be seen as a trajectory or an inherent algorithm. 

Freud stresses that suffering is due to our failure to attain the happiness-producing goals we desire. However boring Schopenhauer considers the achievement of those goals to be, they are there for us to enjoy or at least consider.  

Humor, as a palliative, functions by denying the mind of unpalatable elements of reality and setting up in its place a representation of things more in harmony with our wishes.  Like art, lighthearted perspectives can be seen as a finer and more respectable palliative, and, to those who enjoy it, a source of great pleasure and consolation in life. 

In this respect, humor as an aesthetic enjoyment is something accessible, something we can utilize to get closer to people.

While love is perhaps the most sought after palliative, providing both an enormous amount of comfort and the most intense sensations of pleasure known to us, humor ranks high among palliatives as a sort of social unification. 

Just as when we were kids, choosing our friends mostly because with them we laughed and played, laughter is there as a social corrective for anyone who wishes to "lighten things up" as opposed to supporting a more serious strand of interaction. 

Laughing governs our sensibilities in that we become incapable of receiving unpleasurable impulses. For a moment, humor's effects seem to be intimately linked to our molecular-based, conscious ability to adjust our perception and focus. 

We owe humor not to its device, but rather to its independence from pain. At any time, one can withdraw from the pressures of reality and find refuge in a world of one's own making. 

Humor: The Siren Affect

Hey, baby! 

Insofar as humor is akin to deception, we have reason to be wary of its seductive Siren affect. The danger of an induced seductive, pacific state which threatens our powers of agency could be seen as a warning rather than a release, the warning be that of the loss of self-governance. 

History abounds with stories of induced lethargy or the atrophy of skills, impaired reason, and clouded judgment due to being enslaved by our own pleasures. The objection against impaired reason (Ion) is obvious with respect to sound judgement, but just the same, sound judgment disappears in the presence of lament.

The altered state of happiness as experienced in laughter, just as the inebriant affects of alcohol or drugs, could be considered at odds with the philosophical ideal of free thinking and unimpaired powers to act as a free agent. 

Theoretically, the use of humor, just as the use of alcohol or drugs, could be seen an escapist activity.  By laughing at life we escape or evade the rigor and demands of reason, responsible agency, proper freedom, and self-determination...

Unless, of course, we are determined to laugh and experience life from a state of happiness.  Here, humor is aligned with our goals, making it a necessary action of emotional re-balancing rather than an evasion tactic. 

Sticking to the idea that humor seduces us, causing us to laugh at the punchline of jokes, we can think of humor from a Stoic perspective, lamenting the ways in which our nature is impaired when we act in ignorance or under any conditions that cloud our judgment. 

The Great Humor Escape

It's a widespread popular belief that humor may be employed in a healthy, useful way to develop altered states of consciousness, or states of mind that remove us from our ordinary conscious awareness of ourselves and our surroundings. 

Is this position defensible? 

Let us first consider some of the reasons why humor might be unhealthy and in tension with accepted societal values. 

Recognizably, there are times when humor is not appropriate. Unless, of course, you ask the person in a difficult situation whether or not they would enjoy a joke to take their mind of the pain.

Asking someone's permission before cracking a joke utilizes humor as it is intended, as a remedy or device, minimizing stress so that people can again return to a state where they can "think straight." 

Under the imperial ambitions of Pericles during Plato's time, we too live in a world where the art of persuasion is the most coveted form of artwork in the modern world. Daily, people deceive one another for self-promoting intentions rather than working together toward a common goal. 

As such, the incongruities of humor could be seen as hypocritical (derived from the Greek hypokrisis, which means play acting or feigning). This would account for some people's strong reactions toward humor, deeming it a dangerous escape from reality rather than a positive escape from pain and suffering. 

Whether you consider humor a positive or negative escape depends largely on the life experiences that have influenced your present mindset. Often times, people who have experienced great tragedy tend to laugh easier, recognizing humor as a welcomed release or an escape from pain rather than a distraction from living life according to truth and wisdom. 

Laughter brings with it a release that helps us separate from pain to find a more balanced perspective. In this respect, humor's like an emotional reset button. 

The stern insistence on truth-telling enslaves people into thinking that truth cannot be funny. Yet, it is the quiet truths about living which collectively we find the funniest.

Medical Humor

The alternative philosophies that advocate for the use of humor as a medicine transcend the definitions of health, diagnosis, and disease of conventional medical science. The use of humor as a medicine threatens those who maintain the modern worldview in which experts hold dominion and define what counts as evidence or proof. 

While humor may not cure high cholesterol or diabetes, the feel-good chemicals the brain releases when happy does contribute to minimizing the adverse effects of these and many other diseases of the body and mind. 

Anecdotal evidence of the physical benefits of humor are often dismissed as hearsay because they are untested or lack the needed expertise to "verify" results. Collective narratives of personal experience, however, are still a widely trusted source of medical knowledge, though in the past few years that has been changing. 

The Western world does not respect experience in the same way as does the Eastern world. Personal experience as evidence has waned with the trend toward formalism in medicine and science, with emphasis on research conducted by clinicians in experimental laboratories. 

Accepting only the viewpoints of clinicians who do not value the positive effects of humor is like contracting someone who cannot swim to coach an aspiring Olympic champion on the breast stroke. Understanding the molecular structure of water as it interacts with matter, so to speak, is only 1/2 of the picture. 

Despite an ancient history of use in other cultures, humor was only introduced to Western medicine in the early 20th century, the most famous story of humor therapy presented by Norman Cousins, the then editor of the Saturday Review. According to the story, Mr. Cousins, under the supervision and treatment of his physician, checked himself out of a hospital and into a hotel where he proceeded to cure himself of an illness with a self-invented regimen of laughter (from watching Three Stooges movies) and vitamins. 

While book of Proverbs in the Bible mentions the health benefits of humor, advocates for humor as an alternative medicine has been slow to take root. 

The anecdotes presented in this blog suggest a different worldview, wherein "laughing" does not equate to impairment. Accounts of how laughter has a sense of flow to it demonstrate that humor contributes to wellbeing or optimal experiences of consciousness. Consistent with descriptions found in other applications of the flow experience (athletes, artists, musicians), laughter enhances our ability to meet and manage challenges arising from impairment due to chronic physical or mental health conditions. 

Advocates of using humor as a medicine usually describe its effects as contributing to a sense of harmony, autonomy, empowerment, order, and control over their actions and surroundings. This challenges myopic views of laughter as ridiculous or as being a waste of time in modern Western culture, and offers a perspective that is founded on authentic experience. 

http://www.laughlab.co.uk/

Sophy Went To Paris

Dear Readers: 

MUCHOS MERCIS for following my blog!  As the title states, I have gone to Paris and am enjoying a lovely summer exploring the arts...

Here's some of my art, 

which I drew while hanging out with friends

in the Tuileries Gardens...

Regular followers of my blog who are familiar with the 40 Pieces of the Happiness Puzzle series, probably have a good idea of what I'm exploring here in Paris. 

A testament to my work is my firm belief in the value of empirical research.  I believe it is important to get out and verify theories before publishing them. Theories are devoid of meaning when they are simply theorized or logically deduced.  That's not what I'm going for here. 

It is my goal to have fun exploring humor.  If my efforts are to result in a meaningful contribution to the field, they need to be more than mere regurgitation of past concepts: analysis without comprehension of any subject is dangerous and we have far too much of it in the world already.  

The only thing any of us can honestly speak about with any authority whatsoever are the things we have experienced first-hand. 

So, I'm off to gain some more first-hand understanding of the things I've been writing about! 

Wishing you all a FUNTASTIC SUMMER!  

(I'll be back in September)

A Bientôt

French Butcher Comic

English Translation: 

Internal Dialogue of the French Butcher

I live for the day when an American orders 

something besides ground beef...