in our World!
Laugh!
You'll
Feel Better!
I laughed a lot in April.
Reflecting on all that laughter inspired me to address the topic in my Devotional for May.
I had multiple opportunities
to celebrate with family and friends
in April -
at my 60th birthday gathering;
while reminiscing at the nursing home with my Mom and Dad on the occasion of their 62nd anniversary;
and with my best friends after successfully crossing a Finish Line following a 50-mile bike ride in the challenging Hill Country.
In these celebratory occasions, I laughed a lot.
And man, it feels good to laugh!
In my own extended family, we have frequent discussions about the need to laugh,
we laugh at our present circumstances (even our crises sometimes),
laugh at ourselves,
 |
| Whenever we gather as a family... there's lots of ribbin' one another and hearty laughter! |
We all agree on the need to just be happy dammit! - -
as "the best medicine" for staying healthy.
After all, as I've often noted,
life's too short to be miserable day after day!
My aunts and I are mindful that laughter is something their eldest sister, my mother, frequently advocated.
"Oh-h-h-h..." Mom would be heard commenting, while still patting her ribs strained from all the riotous laughter with her siblings, "you just gotta laugh!"
But not everyone finds the same things funny. Have you noticed?
In fact, I know people who not only don't laugh at jokes, they will consistently reply with some negative comment in lieu of laughter.
Sigh...surely you know some of those people?! [eyeroll]
Quite often -- have you noticed? -- it is the jokes with a dark sense of humor containing subjects or references that not everyone has heard of or understands that seems to stump these negative-nannies.
Researchers in Germany have realized this and published their findings.*
According to them, in order to understand dark humor usually requires that the hearers are well-read, knowledgeable about a wide variety of topics, and are folks with diverse interests rather than single-focused in their learning pursuits.
First, let’s take the test. Are you ready?
Do you find the jokes below that are in bold print to be funny?
A man walks into a rooftop bar and takes a seat next to another guy. "What are you drinking?" he asks the guy.
"Magic beer," he says.
"Oh, yeah? What’s so magical about it?"
Then he shows him: He swigs some beer, dives off the roof, flies around the building, then finally returns to his seat with a triumphant smile.
"Amazing!" the man says. "Lemme try some of that!" The man grabs the beer. He downs it, leaps off the roof —and plummets 15 stories to the ground.
The bartender shakes his head. "You know, you’re a real jerk when you’re drunk, Superman."
According to the new study by these German researchers published in the journal Cognitive Processing*, your reaction to a joke like this one could indicate your level of intelligence.
In the paper, a team of psychologists concludes that people who appreciate dark humor—defined as “humor that treats sinister subjects like death, disease, deformity, handicap or warfare with bitter amusement and presents such tragic, distressing or morbid topics in humorous terms”—may have higher IQs, show lower aggression, and resist negative feelings more effectively than people who turn up their noses at it.
To test this correlation
between sense of humor and intellect, researchers had 156 male and female
participants read 12 bleak cartoons from The Black Book by German cartoonist Uli Stein.
(One of these cartoons, which paraphrases a classic joke, shows a
mortician reaching deep into a cadaver as a nurse muses, "The autopsy is finished;
he is only looking for his wrist watch.")
Participants indicated whether
they understood each joke and whether they found it funny, then took some basic
IQ tests and answered questionnaires about their mood, aggressive tendencies,
and educational background.
The results were remarkably consistent: Participants who both comprehended and enjoyed the dark humor jokes showed higher IQs, and reported less aggressive tendencies, than those who did not. Incidentally, the participants who least liked the humor showed the highest levels of aggression and the worst moods of the bunch.
The latter point makes sense when you consider the widely-studied health benefits of laughter and smiling; if you aren’t able to greet negativity with playful optimism, of course you will feel worse.
“Ever notice that "I’m sorry" and "I apologize" mean the same thing. Except at a funeral.”
—Demetri Martin
But what about the link to intelligence? According to the researchers, processing dark humor jokes takes a bit more mental gymnastics than, say, processing a knock-knock joke—it’s “a complex information-processing task” that requires parsing multiple layers of meaning, while creating a bit of emotional distance from the content so that it registers as benign instead of hostile.
Q: Why don’t cannibals eat clowns?
A: Because they taste funny.
That emotional maneuvering is what sets
dark humor jokes apart from, say, puns, which pit your brain’s right and left hemispheres against each other as
you process a single word's multiple meanings, but usually don't force you out
of your emotional comfort zone.
Q: What has four legs
and one arm?
A: A happy pit bull.
The takeaway: Pretty
much any joke that relies on wordplay will put your brain to work—dark humor
jokes just require a bit more emotional control to earn a laugh.
·
“They say that cats have nine lives. In my view, this makes them ideal for
experimentation.”
—Jimmy Carr
"If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you."
—Steven Wright.
Q: What did Kermit the frog say at Jim Henson’s funeral?
A: Nothing.
Oh my goodness, that's awful.
And I'm still laughing!
Are you?
Bring on the dark humor!
And please, brother, stop taking yourself so seriously!
_______________________
* Taken from a Reader’s Digest story by Brandon Specktor summarizing the paper published in the journal Cognitive Processing, "Cognitive and emotional demands of black humour processing: the role of intelligence, aggressiveness and mood"
More of Terry's Monthly Meditations
New:
December 2023
The Message I Find in the Familiar Story
Previous:
November, 2023
Sept/Oct, 2023
God Gifts Us With A Tomorrow
August, 2023
Mom's Gifts
New:
December 2023
The Message I Find in the Familiar Story
Sept/Oct, 2023
God Gifts Us With A Tomorrow
August, 2023
Mom's Gifts
The Leopard and the Cow
June, 2023
Cousin Bubba's Lesson 137:
Divine Intervention Don't Always Come Pretty
April, 2023
April 1963 - A LOT happened!
March, 2023
Don't Ignore the Signs of TIA
February, 2023
In an Age of Division Can We Find Our Way
To Love and Accept Everyone?
January, 2023
What Do You Know About the Man?
Terry’s “Good Living” Guide:
Avoid the 3 PsBsSs
Processed Foods, Phthalates, Plastics;
Beef, Butter, Breads;
you’ll be feeling better in no time!
Avoid the 3 F’s
misinformation, fear, anger and hate!
No comments:
Post a Comment