In his address to the graduates, Woody Allen once made this solemn observation:
"More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroad. One path leads to despair and hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly."
The ridiculous and the absurd can be invaluable allies in separating us from our self-importance, by reminding us how truly unimportant most of what we deem terribly important is.
Sages throughout the ages have all understood the principle of taking things easy:
"Take the world lightly and your spirit will not be burdened. Consider everything minor, and your mind will not be confused. Regard death and life as equal, and your heart will not be afraid." (See Thomas Cleary, The Tao of Politics, 1990)
An increasing sense of fun and play, and of the ridiculous and the absurd is one of the sure signs of a developing integrity.
But there is also a serious side to humor. Here are some of its tactical and dramatic uses.
In his fight for life with an auto-immune disease the writer, Norman Cousins, spent months doubled over in laughter watching every hilarious movie and reading every silly book he could lay his hands on.
Charlie Chaplin's ridiculous portrait of Hitler in The Great Dictator is a good example. Every New Guinea warrior understands how to turn his backside on his enemy in order to throw him into a rage and break his timing. He laughs him to scorn.
The low stance: "Aw shucks, I'm just a country lawyer" is standard fair for some of the most astute legal sharpshooters. The drunken-man style of gung-fu is one of the most deadly.
In the Japanese epic, Chushingura, Chamberlain Oishi divorces his wife and spends all his days debauchery in the pleasure houses, waiting for the right time to assemble his ronin (masterless samurai) and take revenge on the villainous Lord Kira.
Before the discovery of the body of the murdered Duncan in the tragedy of MacBeth, Shakespeare interpolates a hilarious scene with a drunken watchman who is complaining that he can't get his piddle aligned with his performance. The drunken watchman makes the discovery of the murdered king in the next scene all the more horrific. (Click for a more contemporary example from the O. J. Simpson trial.)
In the recent movie, To Live, by the great Chinese director __________, there is a scene in which a girl is hemorrhaging her life away in childbirth and the only person who can save her is a professor of obstetrics who is so punchy, starved and beaten by the Red Guards that all he can do is stuff his face with sugar buns as the girl's husband and parents try to revive him. We do not know whether to laugh or to cry.
As you become more at ease and your sense of timing grows more acute, the slew skates will open naturally and humor will flow out just at the right moments. No need to force it like the Finnish lady, who kept telling her date, "I am so vitty" and vitty (witty) was what she never was.
Humor - Tactical Uses: So let us have some fun. Write down the five times this week you used humor to help you in a negotiation and what you learned about yourself in the process.
Absurdity: Then write down the five times this week you spotted the absurdity of things, lightened up a bit, had a great belly laugh and moved on.
See the example.
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