Until I met my first clinically depressed patient, many years ago,I hadn't realized that you can be surrounded by humor and find nothing funny. It made me aware that there must be many more conditions that make someone unable to appreciate the humor that tickles most of the rest of us.
As I thought about why some jokes fall flat, I remembered that people who don't do well with metaphors, or examples, also don't do well with double entendres or images that can be read on many levels. Schizophrenia, Aspergers, autism and many other conditions are those with words which make concrete images where the humor is lost. An early example I remember was of a patient walking into an inpatient ward meeting as someone was saying, "I'm really in a pickle." The comment was received by the newcomer with incredulity, "That's silly. How can you get into a pickle?" His image was a person trying to get into one of those vinegary, warty cucumbers in a jar and, indeed, if that is what you see, it isn't clear how you can feel like you are in one. Need I say, this group does not get puns, either!
A survey by Hodge-Cronin & Associates found "that of 737 CEOs surveyed, 98 percent preferred job candidates with a sense of humor to those without. Another survey indicated that 84 percent of the executives thought that employees with a sense of humor do a better job than people with little or no sense of humor.
Dr. David Abramis at Cal State Long Beach has studied fun at work for years. He's discovered that people who have fun on the job are more creative, more productive, better decision-makers, and get along better with co-workers. They also have fewer absentee, late, and sick days than people who aren't having fun."
If you look carefully at the description of those better workers, you see people that are not bi-polar! The description can include hypo-manic people who are often comedians, very energetic, think clearly and have not yet lost judgment. Those who don't stop at hypo-mania but keep rising to full blown manic episodes where judgment is lost are very opposite. They can be lots of fun and make us laugh but, if you listen to them long enough, the pressured speech and humor is readily visible as over the top so you can only feel sorry for them as you realize how sick they really are.
Things are funnier when they are being enjoyed and laughed at by others around you; the obvious reason for laugh tracks being added to taped shows. But that gets us back to the focus of what makes us laugh rather than what happens to make people unable to laugh or see anything as a 'half-full glass' or a 'light at the end of the tunnel'. They are the whiners, the downers, and the people who can kill the mood in a room quickly by simply walking into it.
Obviously, bad taste is in the eyes and ears of the beholder. Some people find it disrespectful to be told off-color jokes. Personally I find them safer than physical, boundary-violation behaviors in which too many indulge. Jokes that offend may be in the area of those derogatory ethnic, sexist, racist, gay or lesbian, religious, and jokes about the disabled.
"The human race has only one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. The moment it arises, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place." -- Mark Twain While Mark Twain makes an excellent point, it often is that the person who cannot laugh feels there is something wrong but doesn't know how to fix it. Too many of us hear, "What's so funny about that?" or, "Is that funny?; I don't get it."
To find laughter in life is a gift of good mental health. When I feel myself losing it, I immediately go into my list of things to check. Am I overwhelmed; stressed out; experiencing a sad anniversary reaction or some unconscious sad memory; coming down with an illness; in chronic pain; experiencing hives; or is there something else preventing me to be my normally cheery, happy self? It doesn't happen often, but I know enough to get out the light box when it happens in October!
No comments:
Post a Comment