H Is For Humor

The Welsh poet Dylan Thomas wrote:

"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

With apologies to Thomas, I would like to paraphrase this opening stanza of the poem:

Do not go quietly into that dark night,
If despair’s dire seduction you would allay;
Laugh! Laugh! Awaken your heart’s delight.

Despair can be seductive. With blandishments of numbness and, sometimes, sympathy, it offers relief from the pain of living.

“Were you abused as a child? Poor thing! Here, let me comfort you. You don’t have to feel the pain and shame, you don’t even have to remember. Just let me cover you with this gossamer blanket of despair and you never have to feel again.”

“Are you in financial difficulty? Don’t know how you’re going to pay your bills? Too proud to ask for help or have already asked and found that help is not available? Too bad. So sad. You know, there’s really nothing you can do about it. Take those few dollars you do have and buy a bottle of whiskey. Slip down the neck of that bottle like a kid going down a waterslide and leave all your problems behind.”

“Did you lose your job? Or, which is sometimes worse, you couldn’t lose it if you tried, though you hate it and would give anything if you could just start over. It’s perfectly understandable if you blame your boss, the economy, the government – hell, you can even blame your family because you know that they are depending on you and there’s not a thing you can do about it. You just as well sit at home, doing nothing, feeling sorry for yourself.”

Despair has many causes; for each person it is different. But one thing is common in all despair:
despair can settle onto your life like vultures on roadkill, sucking all the vital juices out of you. Whatever promises despair might make, it will either hover over you, waiting for you to give up and die, or it will eat you alive.

As unlikely as it may seem, an antidote to despair is humor. Good humor is an attitude that can innoculate you against despair. And if despair does get you down, good humor can help you spring back up.

Good humor doesn’t mean that you have to cackle like a madman; it simply means that you allow yourself to see the humor in life or to appreciate those moments of absurdity that are so much a part of life.

It is probably more effective if you allow yourself to really laugh. I have discovered in myself a tendency to merely smile or give a polite chuckle. What is really needed is a good belly laugh.

Of course, you may feel that your situation is no laughing matter and I’m sure that it true, but laughter may be just what you need and if you can’t find it in your specific situation, find it wherever you can.

When I first recovered my memories of abuse, I was devastated. There were actually times when I was tempted to just lay down and die.

I got through it, in part, by watching two movies – movies that I had seen before and that I knew would both make me laugh and allow me to cry. I watched “The Gods Must Be Crazy” I & II over and over again. They are still my go-to movies when life gets me down.

Norman Cousins fought the scourge of heart disease and, later, the pain of ankylosing spondytitis, by training himself to laugh. The Marx brothers movies and the Candid Camera show were among his favorites.

The old “Reader’s Digest” had a section of anecdotes and jokes entitled “Laughter Is the Best Medicine”. That is often true. Laughter can boost your immune response, lower your blood sugar, and help you relax and sleep better.

Dig out any old issues of Reader’s Digest you might be able to find or go to the library and check out joke books or funny movies. Listen to a child laugh and join in. Let them tell you knock-knock jokes and let yourself laugh even if their jokes are sillier than they are funny.

Laughter therapists advise that even if you don’t find anything funny, start laughing anyway. Fake it until you make it. If you start laughing, eventually you will find yourself really laughing.

You might want to do it in privacy or, if you want to give a friend or loved one a boost, start laughing and see how long it takes them to join in. Laughter can be contagious – which is why most of our laughing is done in social setting.