“That’s not funny.” I tend to get that a lot. In fact, the only funny things I tend to say or do are caused by sporadic brain farts and involuntary physical comedy (i.e. tripping over my flip flops on the way to class).
However, I’ve come to face the fact that I’m not a very skilled comedian, and I’m OK with that; it hasn’t put a damper on my sense of humor in the least bit. And, like everyone, I do have my occasional intentional funny moments. My point isn’t to tell the student body to cover its ears when I tell a joke but to stress the importance of a sense of humor in American culture.
I’m able to wake up every morning stress-free because I have a strong sense of humor. It may not seem to make much sense, but it’s actually completely logical. Having a sense of humor gives people the ability to laugh off difficult, depressing and even life-threatening things; it also gives us a new perspective on things we encounter.
Sense of humor also separates us from many other cultures. I once heard a guy say that sense of humor was one of the foundations of our country’s establishment. He also said that if it weren’t for our senses of humor, we’d probably be the ones strapping bombs to ourselves and blowing things up (that’s not funny).
While a sense of humor has always been an important part of our culture, it seems that we are losing it more and more as time goes on. The problem seems to be that we have reached a period in which we are so caught up with keeping ourselves happy that we’ve forgotten what the foundation of happiness is: the laugh. And while many tragic events have occurred in the last four years alone (terrorist attacks, war, natural disasters, etc.), they shouldn’t keep us from laughing things up on a daily basis.
Another problem is that a lot of folks aren’t keen enough to distinguish what is intended to be funny anymore. It’s like when we were kids and didn’t understand why our parents liked “Seinfeld” so much, except for the fact that we are adults now, and some people still don’t understand it.
“South Park” is another case. Often times I hear people complain about how tasteless and vulgar the humor is on the show, but as long as people, like the show’s creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, keep pushing the envelope, the further older humor gets from actually being funny. Who still thinks Gallagher is funny?
Ultimately, my message is to those who don’t take the time to laugh anymore, and to those of you who wake up every morning and think about how crummy the world is. You’re right, it is crummy, but you only get to live this life once, so don’t forget to love, to fight and especially to laugh.