There’s a whole science behind finding this out. It’s not merely about personal taste.
The science behind might be the butt of the joke, in some ways, but my new series will provoke thought and attempt to answer some questions:
How and why do we find things funny?
What difference can it make to our development and well-being?
How you can get 16-31% funnier.
Why humor helps heal, learn, and grow.
Why and when does humor fail to be funny? and does it matter?
How to develop your sense of humor so unfunny people won’t drive you crazy.
Does a sense of humor reflect something of God in us?
Why do legions of cat video exist?
and plenty of other things.
So far, in researching the science of humor I’ve learned that even babies find things funny.
Okay. That was not a surprise.
I already knew this. For instance, when I would rip junk mail in front of my 6 month old daughter, she’d go into hysteric fits of hilarious laughter. I kept ripping and she kept laughing. Later, when she could talk she mentioned that it wasn’t because of the paper at all. She was thinking of something else that was funny from earlier in the day.
Something filthy.
There’s a biological reason for babies laughing at paper shredding…
The unformulated concept object permanence?
Maybe, or maybe they are just thinking of something filthy.
So, yes, I am starting with baby steps, as it were.
FACT: Humor is universal and germane to humans even at infancy.
(Picture Stone Philips saying that.)
So, yes. In the end, so to speak, babies think peek-a-boo is funny because they are super immature. (like this baby)
You wait for your special day for what seems like an eternity.
You what everything to be just perfect…
or you realize that perfection is impossible.
This brief video is basically horrifying as far as “perfect weddings” go…but the only choice for the bride is to have a sense of humor about it.
Why?
There aren’t any options left.
Sure she could be heartbroken, angry, bitter, or embarrassed (or all of the above) but what happened was out of her control and adding drama won’t make anyone feel any better.
Better to admit the humanity of it all, have a good laugh, and make the best of it!
Then, try to have a great party.
(What she did afterward didn’t make it to the footage, but I’d love to know what happened next. Maybe the groom should have jumped in and they could all continue together.
Some of my thoughts on youth, now that it’s in the rear view mirror.
Youth: a chronic condition that ends in time.
teen star (CC file found here)
The stage of Youth: A time characterized by excitement, worry, hope, fear, misplaced confidence, and options (plenty of which are set to expire).
Nothing breathes fresh air into a situation like an eager youth ready to learn, try, fail, and keep trying. It inspires the younger ones and rallies the older ones.
Nothing is more endearing than a youth who prizes earlier generations and lacks the blinding hubris typical to the stage of the development.
and to the god of our age….Youth, Oh the beauty of it. Personified, Venus, her name. (Youthful Beauty…or what nearly every commercial directed at females is about.)
Like a baby unblemished and without scars, youth displays itself on the young like a pillar of potential, a stack of dreams and promises, shinning and magnificent, and frozen for just that moment in time. Though what youth feels this truly? Youth is a self-deluding time: The stage seems expansive when you are in it, and experience can’t bear this out differently because of the great lack of it.
Sustaining this impossibility of sustained youth, this age of supposed perfection becomes the futile and bitter plight for too many. And the fight for it is nonsensical.
Youth is a stage to be enjoyed and then left behind like outgrown clothes, once pristine, but all-too-soon ill-fitting and inappropriate for the rest of the voyage. Ballet slippers are shed for work boots.
How true that Youthful beauty is but one kind.Though who knows this?
By being convinced that beauty has a pinnacle (age 21?) too may rue the loss of this exterior sort of it–never realizing the false conception is not based on much more than societal conventions and symmetry…but it sells a lot of face cream, doesn’t it?
Yes, the flower of spring is glorious (youth indeed), but the whole plant, or tree, is the greater thing. An oak, a tower in homage to resilience, humanity in the full, of which youthful can never assail, let alone master.
The joy and glory of youth is the promise of accomplishment. Like graduation ceremonies and semi-finals matches.
Though what youth sees it this way?
And what about the resentment of youth by the no longer young?
Maybe it stems from the regret of the energy and options lost. The verve the youths possess can seem enviable. Though they (youth) don’t know it, their blatant inexperience and lack of wisdom, from the outside, seems pitiful, just like the weakness and lethargy of advanced years seem like that to the youth.
“What a young fool,” says the man.
“What a tired and bitter old man,” says the youth.
Both under-estimated.
And back to confidence.
Youthful confidence rests in that accomplishments are assured with effort and willingness. (Though it seems different to them sometimes. For them, confidence may rest mainly in feeling the power of mind and body so fully.)
This confidence is often shattered or dismantled within a decade because of the slings and arrows of life. But occasionally not, and never for the narcissist.
Sickness, financial strain, mishaps, circumstances, failure, and the most debilitating – early success – strip out the potency of youthful confidence. With persistence and determination this is replaced by the better things:
stability of character
the resolution of will
fortitude of spirit
But, best of all: the of acquisition compassion necessary for the species to survive, or even–sometimes– thrive.
(Oh, that it is empathic compassion, not pity, is the impetus for acts of goodness.)
And what of maturity of the youth?
A mature youth is only mature compared to his peers or the fools of older generations.
And for good reason. Maturity is a gift, not a certainty. It comes through time, but also by Grace, just as youth and health come. Though who knows this?
A “mature youth” is usually an oxymoronic attribute, as genuine maturity involves accumulating wisdom.
Maturity and wisdom come through testing and testing by the passage of time well-lived and the battles of life well-tested.
Youthful maturity is then only the bud of it which, if it is there at all, is necessarily nestled in humility (knowing well, or in some good manner, the terrible disadvantage of inexperience).
In the end, the unknown exists for all, but the degrees and varieties of it change as time passes and aging happens. Both exciting and terrifying–needing courage and inner strength.
No, I’m not kidding.
