If I had to pick one trait to be essential in a person, it's a good sense of humor. I can overlook many things, but lacking a sense of humor is not one of them. Additionally, if you have a good sense of humor and the ability to make me laugh, there's a good chance that we will be friends for life.
Being funny has such an impact, it could almost be a superpower. Humor could potentially diffuse any situation. In fact, I don't know why we don't have a caped crusader who pulls hysterical one-liners out of his bag and watches as the bad guys are rendered helpless, rolling on the floor clutching their stomachs, the Hope Diamond or bag of cash lying forgotten on the floor.
People who are truly funny are rarely stupid. Stupid people are funny, but only as objects, not creators, of a joke. When I was thinking about what trait was most important to me, intelligence alone without humor was definitely not enough (cue droning voice lecturing about physics or linguistics).
It takes excellent communication skills to be funny. You have to be able to read your "audience" (even if it is an audience of just one person), and make sure that they are with you every step of the way. This takes timing, listening skills, wit, and the intuition to be sure that you and the listener are in sync. When you deliver the punchline, or throw an expert comeback into the pit, it needs to hit the center of the target, each time. Pow! An explosion of laughter is the indication of success. I think that this is why I find humor so attractive - it's like being tickled from across the room, seducing an emotional response out of the listener that they can't help but express.
There are as many different ways to be funny as there are types of laughs. Oscar Wilde, for example, was an amazing wit, able to turn a phrase with beautiful precision.
- Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
I was in yoga the other day. I was in full lotus position. My chakras were all aligned. My mind is cleared of all clatter and I'm looking out of my third eye and everything that I'm supposed to be doing. It's amazing what comes up, when you sit in that silence. 'Mama keeps whites bright like the sunlight, Mama's got the magic of Clorox 2.'
I have a lot of funny people in my life, and as a result I spend a lot of time laughing. My favorite times are when you are with someone, and something unique happens in that moment, something that is never as funny when you are telling it to someone the next day, but at the time has you in hysterics. When I was in Mexico with my family, my brother and I were up late watching TV. We kept flipping to the show "Different Strokes", which they had dubbed in Spanish and called "Blanco y Negro". The interpretations of the lines and enunciation's of the voices made us laugh so hard. In English, it's a pretty ridiculous show - in Spanish, it's fucking awesome! Every night that we were there, we found ourselves in fits of laughter over "Blanco y Negro", a great memory from the trip. Williiiiiiiiis!
I like the risk that is involved with being funny. You might have to put yourself out there, or say something that crosses the line of appropriateness. People without senses of humor seem so static to me. I feel bad for them - I could never live life like that. The release that you feel from a good laugh is one of the best feelings in the world. The sound of someone laughing uncontrollably is one of my favorite sounds. Humor connects us as people in a wonderful way - and it is all around us. I think that God gave it to us as a way to balance out the tragedy and hardship in life. He chose, humans, not ants or cows, to have this unique trait. In that way, we really do have a superpower - and that is quite a gift.
