Wisecracks

Don't you hate it when you're all, "Have you thought about this? How about that? Notice these things that are important." And then someone is like, "A piece of string walks into a bar, and the bartender says, 'We don't serve your kind here'".  It's like being used, treated like an object, an object just good for jokes. 

It's like taking sugar out of your lemonade, gives you that scrunched up, sour face. And by you, I don't mean you in particular. Some people don't like that.  




Often it's not really about humor per se, it's the timing. No jokes at funerals, after national disasters, or if I'm trying to say something serious.  

Hey you, yeah you, in the back, stop snickering!

 I'll admit, confess even, I've often been the guy who after someone says something serious, adds a little joke, occasionally even at inappropriate times. 


Saying, "First" in a thread is dumb, but getting that first zinger out there, that's something special. But, in a class, it makes the teacher put-upon, like all their work is just a set up for jokes. Sometimes, it's that. Sometimes, even serious people get hecklers. Hecklers usually aren't really funny though.

The impropriety of the heckling itself is the real source of apparent humor (and rarely is it apparent). But a good-natured wisecrack is something else. It's an expression of comfort, even of conversation. I say serious things myself a fair amount, "saying serious things" might even be a way of summing up my profession.

 But a teacher in high school, one of the best teachers I had before college (even if he was a bit actually crazy and quite possible occasionally high), said, "If you can make a joke about it, it shows you understand it." Not a dismissive joke. A witty one, a wisecrack even. That's not to say I deploy jokes as social commentary.

I post wisecracks when that is what comes to mind. It's how I interact with people. I'm a terrible conversationalist, horrible at small talk (can I get an Amen from the other INTJs?!), and jokes are my way of seeming like I'm part of the group while staying a bit on the outside.

Wisecracks, however, are often a commentary as well. Illuminating a part of the writing, or unintended consequence, or even a flub in the composition.  Sure, wit can also be a game, a competition, but it's usually a good-hearted one, a way of sharing and interacting, bouncing off each other, jazz riffs making use of the chord structure mixing light and heavy phrases.  Or something like that.  Maybe. 

Wisecracks are often even a way of coping with the depths of an issue, with the underlying absurdity that a surface level analysis doesn't always perceive.  

There aren't a lot of really funny people who grew up in absolute comfort and wealth, after all. Why is that?

Why are the funny people the ones who, oftentimes, have gone through the most torture? 

Because they're not as deep or as thoughtful?   Maybe.  Or mabye it's the people who take their thoughts so seriously who aren't as deep or as thoughtful. 

Have you noticed that terrorists and dictators take themselves very seriously?  What's up with that?

 Is humor, as someone said recently (I'm too lazy to look, tag yourself), inherently a contradiction of seriousness? Maybe humor actually takes serious issues more seriously than seriousness does. 

And sometimes a joke is just what comes to mind, part of the interaction between people. It comes to mind and makes me laugh, so I type it as a comment, which is easier than trying to convince myself it's not funny.

Humor is how people relate to each other. What, you don't want to relate to other people?

And now, some Mitch Hedberg, for no other reason than he makes me laugh: