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Humor Series: Funny to Whom?

funny-old-lady-smoking

Have you heard this one?

Three Humor Science researchers walk into a bar. ….um. Wait. That won’t work. Let me start over.

Get a scientist to talk about humor studies and you get a quick reminder of how science can squeeze the life out of anything.

Dissection is destructive. But no more!

It’s time to find out in a better way:

1. What do people find funny and why?

2. How can YOU become more humorously winsome?

3. How can science and an understanding of human nature and spirituality help us find out?

That’s what this series will be about, and I promise that it won’t be as dull as it’s been when scientists have the mic.

If it’s successful, a long form project will go a lot further and get a lot funnier. That’s up to you.

Here’s the story of how it all started:

A friend of mine asked me to speak at a senior residential home on the topic of community. No problem. I speak at plenty of places on plenty of topics. I wrote my bullet points and picked out an outfit…and then things went bad.

The problem?
I didn’t know she was billing me as “hilarious”.

I found that part out only a few days beforehand. I went into a quiet panic. The kind where your hands get clammy and your sweat smells like bad coffee. You run out of TUMS at times like this.

I’d planned on being friendly and informative, not uproarious. I was going to present material and involve them in cute bonding activities, not split their sides in gales of laughter. My friend had been walking around assuring residents that I was the funniest thing going.

Now what?

Maybe, I could stick a joke in there somewhere:

“Have you ever peed your pants laughing? What a silly question–you’re old people. You peed your pants getting out of bed today. Is bladder incontinence a laughing matter? …Depends.”

Depends is right. This wasn’t going to work.

What if they hated me? Some of them are in chronic pain. Some are grouchy. Some have little patience for sassy youngsters. These people carry canes and some smell like pee.

I could get the beating of my life! And I would deserve it.

The terror of bombing at the place drove me to research the topic of humor scientifically.

My purpose was to help these folks have a good time, not offend them.

What resulted was a quest and many discoveries. I had to find out if funniness can be learned, if public speaking can be improved with a formula, if laughter can be predicted, and if old people laugh at jokes about physical deterioration and, if so, under what conditions.

Well, it turns out the last bit is sort of tricky. More on that in future material.

On getting funnier

My research dug up a very good find and it might help you too:

One of the ways almost anyone can get funnier to more people is to appear harmless more broadly.

Does that seem counter-intuitive?
Yes, there are foul-mouthed, raunchy comics aplenty and seem to get lots of laughs, but they are not typically funny to the greatest numbers of people compared to plenty of other things (pies in the face, mistaken identity antics, prat falls, kittens jumping in surprise), and there is a scientific reason why.

What more people (on average) actually find funny hinges on giving them something that is funny at a further comedic distance. This explains why Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, and Bill Cosby (before all that drugging women stuff was found out) have huge followings and continued success, and Roseanne Barr gets more annoying as time goes by.

What is Comedic Distance?

Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.

-Mel Brooks

In this quote, Mel Brooks underscores what humor researchers are finding empirically true. Distance matters a lot.

If your child falls off the playground slide and bangs himself up, it’s scary. If some man in a cowboy hat suddenly gets kicked in the crotch by an aggressive llama, it’s laughable.

The Kitten vs. Stern Proof

This is why videos of kittens doing silly things trump in spades the popularity of Howard Stern and his radio show antics. The hoards of memes, shares, and overall fans of funny kitten videos means that invariably, kittens kick Howard’s butt. Big time. Kittens won’t squash your dearly held values. Kittens won’t say something gross about bodily fluids. (Kittens are not funny to everyone, but they are funnier on the whole than a raunchy DJ or vulgar comedian. No contest.)

The difference between kittens and Howard Stern is this: Something “dangerous” isn’t personally threatening when kittens are involved.

Comedic distance (whether physical, chronological, or emotional) creates an amusing incident. The surprise pays off and people are thusly amused. If not, that you can get booed.

For me, I played off that my normal Thursday afternoons are spend with prison inmates and that I was REALLY happy for the upgrade.

I was then heckled by a woman who said,

“Don’t be so sure.” (She has it in for a few of her neighbors. It’s been ugly.)

To which I replied, “Well, you are all much better dressed.”

Resounding laughter. A win!

So, see if you can figure out why the photo above is funny (to most people)?

Answer:
The woman has made it to 100 years old and she’s done it her way.
Sure, smoking is dangerous, but apparently not much, in her case.

Having fun?

I hope you are enjoying this series.

Do you have questions about humor theory or getting funnier?
Let me know.

-Lisa

Here are the previous articles in this series:

1. Finding things funny…from birth

2. Humor Studies: Step 1 – Tickle Rats

For the latest info on my humor related projects sign up here.

Finding your PURPOSE: 4 Surprising Ways

Today, I’m sharing with you my thoughts and draft notes as I prepare a talk.

If you’re getting stuck and feeling like you can’t find your purpose, or if you thought you knew your purpose and now you don’t really–don’t worry.

Although your basic human purpose changes very little, the details can change at different stages in life or in different circumstances. You are normal.

If you don’t know this bit about the shifts of purpose, you can go through dark periods needlessly and have longer slumps. Well, enough of that!

The WISP technique is something I came up with to keep me on track.

Not that there could be a “technique” per se.

Think of it as a rule of thumb or guide, if that helps.

Do you have a notebook?

Grab one.

Purpose – the finding and keeping of it – can be slippery. So, field notes help.

Keep track of your progress. It gives you a structure and a history to check on.

STEP 1

W

Worship

Does this sound a bit odd? Worship.
The more odd it sounds to you as a starting point, the more you need to do it to get properly orientated straight-away.

Worship is other focused, by nature. Yes?

That new perspective alone can help you make a break-through. But, really it’s much more than that at work.

“As we worship a fundamental shift happens because we remember who we really are.” -LD

At first blush it seems like worship is for God, because he is owed our worship. True?

That’s really only part of it. Let’s dig deeper:

1. God doesn’t need ANYTHING from us. He’s not insecure.

2. This means that Worship is to him (or toward him), but for OUR benefit.

To put it simply, God commands us to worship him because he wants it to be well with us.

[He knows we need it. Sure it’s his due, but he’s not an egomaniac. He’s always been taking care of us, even through the vehicle of worshipping him.]

When we fail to worship God, we start to worship lesser gods, like…ourselves, other mortals, our ambitions, the gods of the secular, dying world, and countless vanities.

Astray is where we go without properly directed worship.

Few things can create more clarity than a rightly worshipful heart.

• Clarity is a byproduct of worship and so are many other positive things I won’t get into this time.

Remember what Worshiping God helps us remember:

Who we are
Who we love (and who loves us)
And to whom we belong

Don’t feel like worshiping?…well you have to start somewhere.

Loosen your grip on your desires and expectations until you finish this stage. Shift your posture and you will find a new take on your life and on your purpose.

Back to that Handy-dandy Notebook!

(Shout out to Dora the Explorer)

Note feelings, changes, attitudes in your field notes now and during worship.

So where or how should you start in worship?

You can start with something that tends to speak to you and get through to you. What worked before? Start there and keep pushing through. Maybe you’ll find something new or maybe something familiar will help.

OPTIONS:

For some this may mean getting a true break from others and a return and appreciation of the created world. (A walk, a camping trip, a hike, a solo picnic.)

For some it’s music and song. (Just listen, create some, or sing along.)

For some it’s just praying for a while. (It’s talking to God, so it’s a great place to start, if possible.)

For some it’s a with the help of a spiritual exercise like… “Praying the Names of God”

Here’s a quick “course” on how it works:
“Praying the names of God” is to first, come up with 10, 20, or 100 names of God. There are plenty: Savior, Redeemer, Creator, Father, Shepherd, Mother Hen, Majestic…you get the idea. As you say, write, and pray the names, roll them over in your mind. What do they mean? Let them affect you, be thankful and rejoice, and (of course) express your thanks and gratitude to God in prayer…which would be the actual worshiping part.

Example: “God you are my Provider. You have taken care of me and continue to. I thank you for providing for me, even in ways I don’t now about. God you are my Rock…”

Reading the Bible might help trigger true worship. Reading the psalms or the great Bible stories like the one of Joseph can inspire a true attitude of worship. You can read using the practice of Lectio Divina for some extra punch too. As you read thorough a portion, note the works or wonders of God, and pray about them, giving glory to God. Worship.

Maybe you have other ways to get the worship started. So, just get started!

HOMEWORK!

You thought this was just some quick reading or some mental exercise, huh?

Nope. I’m asking more of you.

Assignment:

Use a notebook to record your mode of worship and your attitude at the start, during the time of worship, and afterwards. Then, continue to enter into times of short (5-15 minutes) and uninterrupted worship experience for a few days, or until the next post (which ever is longer).

Next post we will continue and with I in WISP

Click Here

On Camping and “The Chatter of the Mind”

boating

For the last 10 years in a row, we’ve gone to Camp Swatara to…almost rough it as a family.

We just got back yesterday afternoon and began the de-camping process. 6 loads of laundry and putting things away for 3 hours. It’s more tiring than camping, and camping includes foraging for firewood to sustain your life.

For the first time, I didn’t take a single picture of our time away. (The photo above is from the camp website. It’s nondescript enough to resemble us.) It seems strange that I didn’t take any now that it’s done.

It’s an interruption to take photos sometimes, so honestly, I didn’t even think about it. My mind was chattering and I was more “in the moment”.

Later, off course, the photos come in handy to help you remember what happened. Right now, I think I remember something about killing 30 flies with the swatter and the surge of gratification that gave me–and something about S’mores.

My least favorite things about camping:

1. Too much humidity (Towels dry outside on the clothesline….never.)

2. Feeling covered in dirt and sweat 95% of the time

3. Feeling covered in sunscreen and bug spray over the layers of dirt and sweat

4. Bugs and all sort of biting and buzzing insects

5. Walking outdoors to use the indoor bathroom facilities

6. Thin mattresses that cause aches and pains

7. The hyper-vilgilengce about poison ivy and occasionally getting it.

(It all sounds like a dream-come-true, right?)

(some of) My most favorite things about camp

1. Having friends visit

2. The hospitality inherent in the camping community (sharing, chatting by the fire, friendly greetings as you walk around)

3. Family togetherness. Yes, it’s forced on you, but you can really start to enjoy it, usually.

4. The way things smell when the dew evaporates off the leaves in the morning.

5. How the day eases into the night and the darkness that comes to ease you into sleeping

6. Overcoming crisis together. Yes, it’s pretty awful at the time, but great memories and bonding come later.

7. Making fire and cooking with it, or using the firepit as a homing device. It’s hypnotic and primal and warm.

8. The refinement that happens when you realize what you truly need, compare to what you think you need. It turns out that you want things you don’t need.

What you really need: water, food, dry shelter and clothing, each other. What you think you need: a faster laptop.

In the end, you have kids that look forward very happily to the time away, and two parents (me and Tim, obviously) who are happy it’s part of our summertime, even though the whole process is challenging.

It’s actually the challenge that creates the satisfaction later, but you don’t know that unless you try it the whole way through.

If you aren’t psychologically ready to endure, you can get bitter or regretful (…um…so I’ve heard). Plus, it’s a dry camp, so there’s no wine to easy you into it.

The other thing is that intact families tend to camp together. I didn’t have this growing up and it’s a gift I give my children and myself now.

Yes, sometimes “split-up” families camp, too. But, mine didn’t.

Usually broken up families have a lot more scheduling issues and conflicts. Camping as an activity gets pushed to the side, unless you are very dedicated about it and keep it up.

And then there’s the Chatter of the Mind

And sometimes, though not this time, I get to hear less from the planning and inner monologue part of my “chattering mind”.

In general, this chatter may be telling you that you forgot ziplock bags at home or that, or that despite your efforts, you really aren’t worth much in the world, or that you should have cleaned out the vacuum filter more thoroughly, or that you made a mistake in explaining something, or that the people you were just talking to think poorly of you, or that you have to cook something that requires 14 steps… and how will be working out anyway, or the plans for the afternoon and where and how to apply sunscreen properly for it, or any number of things.

There isn’t much quiet in and about our minds, and not for very long.

It’s called thinking. It can be incessant. It’s not just me, right?

If you finally reach that place in time and space where the chatter dies down, it’s almost deafening, actually. At first.

It tends to happen, not on family camping trips, but when I retreat away from home and I go alone. After 2-3 hours of intensional quietness–dialing down everything things improve. But that’s only when I’m being disciplined about getting away and pushing every nuisance thought back, or submitting it to paper, each time one surfaces. If not, it can take days, and too often never happens at all.

And after you tamp down or divert each thought pelting your brain you realize you’ve been breathing all wrong for much too long. You haven’t been able to separate the planning from the enjoying and looking around. You’ve forgotten the things you love or you have not noticed the things you should.

It doesn’t happen all at once that the chatter starts bullying you, but it happens.

(To come to my next retreat trip, click here.)

The chatter is an adversary that comes in pretending to be helpful and careful, as if it has your best interests in mind. But really, it’s just making you weary by using up too much valuable “mental RAM”, like (foolishly) running windows on top of a Mac Operating System.

How’s your mental RAM these days, anyway? Up to snuff?

Can you remember the last time you didn’t experience “the chatter of your mind” for some length of time?

(If you’re thinking about that now, or much of anything, then now is not one of those times.)

And if settling it all down sounds too close to death, then it’s been too long.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.

Dispatch from Prison (Ministry): how to inject HOPE

inmatereading Again, last night I heard from a man about my age whose been locked up for more than 20 years. Plenty of the men I encounter have spent more time behind bars than outside them.

PLEASE, try to imagine that for a moment.

Want the truth? For some, the thought of going back “to the streets” as they call it, fills them with true dread and anxiety. The world outside of prison is full of unknowns and it’s absent of structure (like 3 meals a day, concrete expectations, and consistent scheduling). There are hazards and temptations, and of course, a bleak outlook employment for future employment. They have little or no ways for doing legitimate work. (Would YOU hire a felon?) Some inmates are so fearful of the outside and paralyzed by their prospects that they will purposefully break rules, hurt others, or commit crimes in prison to lengthen their sentence.

Imagine picking to be in prison rather that choosing to start over anew in freedom.

It seems insane, perhaps, until you realize the terrific poignancy:

Captivity is primarily is located in the mind.

This is just as true for non felons. • Too many of us walk around is prisons of our own making. We see closed doors instead of open ones. We let our past tell us a story about ourselves that can continue to enact. We feel trapped or confined with no way to truly free ourselves. We stay oppressed by sin, soul sickness, and slow forms of dying.

We all need healing to find the fruition of Justice.

True justice involves restoration and rehabilitation for re-entry into community and renewed relationships.

Even the Federal Government realizes this. Prisoners need to prepare ahead of time for release and transform their ways of thinking and doing things. New programs have launched that focus on acquiring skills and tools for successful re-entry into communities were a return to crime and old ways becomes less probable. Building more prisons isn’t working. Many of these re-entry programs focus on drawing from a deeper spiritual place and making choices based on the highest of morals to ensure that the best outcomes are the result. They rely on volunteers to help. Amazing that more resources aren’t carved out for something so important, huh? As a volunteer, I’m working multiple times per week teaching and guiding inmates to prepare them for their eventual release.

But God has put something else on my heart.

• I want my brothers behind bars to be missionaries to fellow-inmates. • I want them to be lights in that dark place. • I want them to pray for others and be sources of support and encouragement. • I want them to be vehicles of God’s love and rays of hope for everyone they encounter. Last night, I told them out loud. As I shared my vision with them, the excitement was palpable. They started smiling. They nodded in agreement. Some laughed because they had been thinking the same thing. God has been at work long before I showed up. They want to be a part of what God is doing. They want to be a part of something bigger in the family of God, now, and in the Kingdom of God past, present, and future. It’s a kingdom that was inaugurated fully with Jesus the King more than 2,000 years. It’s a Kingdom that will continue, as is has all over the world, all the way into eternity. Forever and ever, Amen.

In sharing a vision, where others can use their gifts and talents for a greater purpose, we inject meaning and hope. What power that has!

These men are men who are having their hope renewed.

Would you like to help?

Click here to learn more or volunteer. Click here to help me continue this ministry.