 It's
fun. It's rewarding. It's free, and it's healthy. Practically everyone
does it but probably not enough, especially in times like these. It's
laughter we need.
Mark Twain called laughter "the greatest weapon we have, and we,
as humans, use it the least." It's the object of studies called
gelotology. Those who study laughter want to know what makes jokes
like the following "top joke in Belgium" funny:
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Why do ducks have webbed feet?
To stamp out fires.
Why do elephants have flat feet?
To stamp out burning ducks. |
According to Ambrose Bierce, laughter is "an
interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and
accompanied by inarticulate noises. It's infectious and, though
intermittent, incurable." He was defining laughter--something we
could all use more of. It helps to keep our sanity.
As Charlie Chaplin added, it's "the tonic, the relief, the
surcease for pain." On several occasions recently, I've attended
the Comedy Central evening at the Diplomat Radisson SAS Hotel. The
last time I went, I'd had an exhausting few days of work and almost
missed a refreshing evening of levity.
Some of the comedians have been so good at their trade that they've
kept their audiences in stitches until their sides hurt from laughing.
If you're fond of stand-up comedy, Yahoo!
provides an extensive list of comedians including 10 of the most
popular at the top and the rest listed alphabetically. Choose your favorite
comedian and recapture his one-liners.
 Not
all laughter is positive in its sources or its objects. Mentally
deranged people can laugh at the misdeeds that they or others perform.
The recent photograph of a young girl laughing at prisoners she was
helping to torture was deranged.
When someone laughs at another's deformity or weakness, they exhibit a
demented characteristic. As John Quinton said, "That laughter
costs too much which is purchased by the sacrifice of decency."
Following the same idea, well-known author James Thurber wrote,
"The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears and takes
more forms - hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal." Thurber,
too, was obviously dismayed by the kinds of actions that give pleasure
to unhinged minds.
There's also the odd comment of a thinker like American Professor F.
A. P. Aveling who wrote, "The really happy man never laughs--seldom--though
he may smile. He doesn't need to laugh, for laughter, like weeping, is
a relief of mental tension, and the happy are not over-strung."
 That
made me wonder how many people, living in a world of wars, poverty,
unemployment and threats of terrorism, care much about the many
sufferers. Can awareness of and care about humanity's millions
possibly exist without mental tension? Either Professor Aveling was
salted away in an ivory tower when he wrote that or he's not bothered
by any of the horrors and debasement or injustices and indigence that
afflict so many.
Who but Professor Aveling can keep up with the news and not experience
mental tension? Perhaps the professor has been oblivious to the news.
On the other hand, like the soldier in the top joke from Germany, he
may've been pretending that people don't need to laugh as revealed in
this one about fooling an audience:
A general noticed one of his soldiers behaving oddly. The soldier
would pick up any piece of paper he found, frown and say: "That's
not it" and put it down again. This went on for some time until
the general arranged to have the soldier psychologically tested. The
psychologist concluded that the soldier was deranged, and wrote out
his discharge from the army. The soldier picked it up, smiled and
said: "That's it."
If you want to know how laughter works, the website How
Stuff Works has several pages devoted to laughter. They explain
what it is and its purpose, how it works on the brain and what makes
us laugh. They even make clear why we don't all laugh at the same
things and how laughter has been related to health.
 To
answer the question in the title "Why can't I tickle
myself?" researchers at the University of California in San Diego
constructed a "tickle machine." Their findings would explain
why we depend on other people's jokes and on comedians.
According to the researchers, "Some scientists believe that
laughing caused by tickling is a built-in reflex. If this is true,
then, theoretically, you should be able to tickle yourself. "But
you can't - not even in the same area and the same way someone else
tickles you into hysteria." The information sent to your spinal
cord and brain should be exactly the same. "But, apparently, for
tickling to work, the brain needs tension and surprise - something
that's obviously missing when you tickle yourself. How the brain uses
this information about tension and surprise is still a mystery."
The authors of How Laughter Works point out that we don't all laugh at
the same things. Children and infants find things funny that wouldn't
cause a teenager to chuckle. Lots of teenagers laugh at jokes about
sex, food or authority figures and topics that adults consider
off-limits.
As adults we laugh the most at things that cause us stress. Since that
differs from person to person, therein lies the explanation of why
people differ in the degree of their enjoyment of the same humor. The
degree of humor we find in a joke varies according to the culture or
community we come from.
Some people are offended by jokes that others laugh at. You don't want
to tell a sexist joke to people fighting sexist practices. Some humor
can also be missed because the subject of the joke is local or
associated with a particular group.
Those who don't appreciate risqué jokes can be offended by some of
the adult humor on the web. Because different kinds of humor appeal to
different people, it wouldn't be a good idea to recommend websites
that might bring laughter to some but not to others. For that reason,
my suggestion is to explore various sites.
Type any of the following keywords into your favorite search engine
and explore until you find the humor that makes you laugh: laugh,
laughter, humor, humor, jokes, funny or comedy. The Google
directory page on "humor" has almost 60 categories of humor
that you can choose from, each with multiple links to other sites.
If you're fond of British humor, you might try Panorama's
page with numerous links to other websites. Laugh
Lab in the UK was a scientific experiment, conducted by Dr.
Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire in collaboration
with the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
For more than a year, people from all over the world sent in their favorite
jokes and rated how funny they found jokes submitted by others. LaughLab
received over 40,000 jokes and almost 2 million ratings. A 31-year-old
psychiatrist from Manchester submitted the joke that won:
 A
couple of New Jersey hunters are out in the woods when one of them
falls to the ground. He doesn't seem to be breathing. His eyes are
rolled back in his head. The other guy whips out his mobile phone and
calls emergency services.
He gasps to the operator: "My friend is dead! What can I
do?" The operator, in a calm, soothing voice says: "Just
take it easy.
"I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There's a
silence. Then a shot is heard. The guy's voice comes back on the line.
He says: "OK, now what?"
If you didn't laugh at that, you may believe that Professor Aveling
was right. On the other hand, if you did laugh, psychiatrists doctors
Wiseman of Hertfordshire and Gosall who submitted the joke probably
have it right. As comedian David Nathan said, "Laughter is part
of the human survival kit." Several people have also pointed to
the importance of sharing laughter.
Here are a few of my favorite laughter-sharing comments from
well-known sources:
Laughter is the shortest distance between two people. --Victor
Borge
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship,
and it is far the best ending for one. --Oscar Wilde
In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter and
sharing of pleasures. --Khalil Gibran
He deserves Paradise who makes his companions laugh. --The
Qur'an
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