Sense of Humour - A Secret tool for Happiness

There is sense of humour in everything you come across in day to day life. But I think we should have the perspective of seeing it. I had a lesson in Kannada, my mother tongue when I was in High school on “smile and cry”. To be frank, I was mesmerized that day when I read this lesson "for the exam". How could someone write an essay on such a topic like smile and cry? I think almost everybody on this universe have experience of what it is and no body have ever sat for a while to think and write an essay on it which considers the deeper aspects of reality and sensitivities which gives a whole different perspective on what it is. And this inspires me to chop down some of the words on this topic sense of humour, even though I am not a big scholar as the writer who wrote this essay for us in my high school. But i can promise that none of this what i write below is copied from that lesson or from somewhere 😝

The most added advantage of sense of humour is it make people laugh which itself is the most beautiful thing that can happen to a human being at the expense of an expression or an intended witty statement. It may come because of a perfect timing, a punch duologue, a reaction to somebody’s words, repetition of some sentence from the past or a mere bodily expression as a reaction. It can come out irrespective of caste, religion, age, gender up to an extent we can say even species. Even a reaction of a dog can be very funny. But the most important observation one should make in terms of human values is to consider the fun with an end effector point of view. I would broadly classify it as two kinds. 1) harmful and 2) harmless.   All I mean to say is, if the humour is caused at the expense of somebody’s feelings or somebodies dreadful situation it is harmful and dangerous. If it comes at an expense of self-intended pun or dreadful situation of self out of speaker it would be harmless. Most of the comedians fail to differentiate this difference in many situations. I would say it is very disastrous when somebody honours the first kind of humour.  And it’s even more dangerous when nobody notices it or when somebody does it is not considered to be healthy comment. The best way to do this is to do some humour on self or situations where only you are the only victim. have a look at this great comedian and what we can learn from the humour she makes through her her character. She can be a greatest example of how a harmless humour should look like. 

It’s important to notice the difference between being funny and being humorous. Most of the times people often fail to notice the difference and think both are same. I will try to make the differentiation between two. Being funny is like creating the humour. May be presenting some incident in a funny way or telling a receded joke or just making a timely statement that creates the funny moment. But being humorous is a much more difficult task than the earlier one. For this you need a special talent of considering the lighter aspects of situations. It is the ability to let go things and not taking things as so serious as the person next to you is taking. And you don’t really have to be funny to have a sense of humour and vice verse.
Next question comes on developing the sense of humour. One can develop sense of humour over a period even if he did not have it before. It can be learnt from many ways. By seeing and observing people who have it and trying to mingle with such people or getting inspired by seeing the beautiful things happening to them. By seeing a humorous serial and learning from humorous characters. By watching kids on how they laugh over silly things. The most important point one should always keep in mind while learning to be humorous is not to copy the exact style of the humour. Or copy the exact same words of your teacher. Because humorous side of someone is like fingerprint. It is unique to he or she. And when you try to copy it most of the times it turns out to be shitty or unnatural. So, my suggestion is to be yourself trying to inculcate the funny sides of your teacher would be the right approach to develop it.

There is this serious allegation 😝 always on stand-up comedians. It’s been said that they are very spontaneous and they are very reflexive in their expressions. They just say whatever that comes to their mind without even thinking on it. For all those who ask this question I have a second question lined up. Is it wrong to say what you think? I would say is it the best way to handle with problems. You will not have any problems if we start practicing it. in fact, I would say it’s the best practice to stay true to everyone. Once you start thinking too much before you utter something to keep the other person happy, you may not say something which is true for the moment but something to keep the relationship between them calm. But the advantage when you say the truth with humour is even though you say the truth it is not harmful to anyone. Just that it should not cross the line as I explained earlier. As per some comedians you can make humour on the positives of someone it won’t hurt them the most instead it bonds them better. For example, if we say make fun of someone as a nerd in a positive way, when he actually is it would be a compliment for him rather than setting him aside from the group. For example, taking some crazy problem in a group of people and stating it as he probably can solve this would create a laughter in everyone at the same time keeps him proud of what he is. And the other thing of spontaneity that I spoke of comes from being more and more himself rather than trying to become someone else. It surprises with the way the conversation is going. People like surprises. They even like it when its mixed with humour.
To end with I would like to say the sense of humour as a mirror which tells how happily you want to see this world. If you want to see happiness and sense of comfort ability in everything you want to see use this tool to be in a happy environment around. If you sit in front of a person, who looks very serious in his attitude and you will automatically become serious in your ways to feel comfortable in the situation. But if you see someone very humorous and very friendly in his attitude and looks very open and comfortable to have a conversation automatically you will tune yourself to a frequency where you can also reciprocate with the environment and feel comfortable. To end with I feel all people need to be in a comfort zone and you can create a comfort zone with this powerful tool. 

- Sid



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