|
|
Oct. 7, 2005
Rehabilitating humor
Professor validates laughter one joke at a time.
DEREK JAMENSKY
Rabbi Shmuel Greenberg has been going to the Wailing Wall to pray
every day for the past 50 years. Because of this, he is a legend
in the community. Recently, on the 50th anniversary of his prayers
at the wall, he was asked by a local journalist, "What do you
pray for?" He responded, "I pray every day for a just
peace between Jews and Arabs." Later, he was asked how he feels
about the political situation in Israel. "Like I've been talking
to a wall," he said.
If you're not chuckling, then maybe you need to attend a seminar
with Dr. Elaine Decker, who teaches a humor-studies course at B.C.
Institute of Technology. She also instructs educators in the teacher
education program at the University of British Columbia on how to
lighten up.
"Humor is not the opposite of seriousness," Decker pointed
out in a recent seminar at Temple Sholom. "Taking life lightly
doesn't mean that you don't take it seriously." She sees this
distinction as part of her career mission – to rehabilitate
humor as a coping tool. It is perfectly reasonable to be serious
and funny at the same time. Decker used the following story as an
example.
According to the New York Times, George W. Bush recently
stated that terrorists looked at the damage in New Orleans caused
by hurricane Katrina and "wished that they had caused it."
As a follow-up to the American president's comments, White House
spokesperson Scott McClellan said, "We must ensure that the
terrorists never get their hands on a hurricane!"
The first part of this story is true; Bush recently did make that
assertion. The second part is a joke, but one that can play an important
role in serious discussions. It can serve as a gentle entry point
to a highly charged debate, putting everyone at ease by taking the
edge off a difficult reality. It does this by shifting your perspective
just enough so that you can look at the situation with fresh eyes.
Decker refers to this shift in perspective as "active coping."
Being ready to see the comedy in something keeps us intellectually
nimble. It can also help us live longer, happier, healthier lives
– just what we need in order to pray for 50 years solid, or
otherwise enjoy our time on Earth.
As humans, we cope with change in the world by ordering events or
experiences into categories, said Decker. Some random categories
that we order our world with might be people we admire, things crazy
people do, smart investments ... the categories are endless, and
we're always making up new ones. If we are unable to shift our categories
when the situation requires, then we suffer from what Decker calls
"hardening of the categories" – symptoms of which
are a worried and helpless expression and an inability to cope with
the unexpected when it inevitably occurs.
"We have an anticipation," said Decker. "Then we
have an experience, and the result of the experience is typically
not an exact match to the anticipation. And that's called life.
How we deal with it is called coping. Humor shifts our perspective
and keeps us mentally limber, ready for new understanding. It helps
us creatively reorder reality, in ways both large and small."
Of course, there are times when nothing is funny. If your dog just
died, then you're not likely to laugh at much for a few days. And
there are some jokes that you might not get, because you lack either
the background knowledge or the experience. Others may simply be
in bad taste. As Billy Crystal once said, "The world is a tough
room to work."
But, said Decker, we need to remind ourselves to play with our categories
and to look for novel truths. Practising on the small things keeps
us prepared for the bigger challenges in life. Like any other survival
tool, it has to be ready to go at a moment's notice. Play is practice
for active coping.
None of this is really new. From ancient times, the idea of meaning
in the world has been closely allied with humor. Not only was Hermes
the messenger of the Greek gods (and so made sense of the random
events of the world), but he was also the first trickster. The god
of meaning and the first comic were the same character.
More interestingly still, Hermes also transported people to the
underworld, and so was one of the few gods who knew both life and
death. Like all of us, he stood at the edge of life and looked over
into eternity. If we remember to play, we may, like him, manage
to keep our sense of humor.
Derek Jamensky is a Vancouver freelance writer.
^TOP
|
|
