Thursday, December 27, 2007

Do ya got one?

I have a sense of humor. Honest. This was not always the case. In fact it is only recently did I develop said humor.

In my ongoing quest to definitively know what makes something “FUN” I have been exploring what makes something funny. Funny is often a component of fun. Funny how that works. Ha. Anyway, I thought that to do this you needed a sense of humor. So I explored what constitutes a sense of humor. During this I realized that I only recently acquired one.

Everyone thinks they have a sense of humor. How hard could it be? In the past my thinking process went like this: Since I laugh at some stuff so I must know what is funny about some stuff and therefore I must have a sense of humor, in other words I must have some inclining. I know I am not a master at humor of course. I only had a sense of humor, not the full thing. I could see part of it. Understand?

Of course this is not what people mean. People are not referring to a partial understanding of humor. Most often what people mean is that you can take a joke. Can you be the butt of a joke and know it’s just a joke. See a sense of humor has less to do with humor and more to do with perspective. Can you take it in stride? Do you see the big picture? What people mean is do you have a partial understanding of everything relevant?

Other times having a sense of humor directly relates to how good you are at making people laugh. I believe people that are consistently good at making others laugh must be good at seeing the big picture. They see it so well they are able to describe it from some new angle that is humors. It is certainly true that if you can make people laugh you are more fun, which is of course why we are here. What does it take to enable others to have more fun?

Maybe there are other facets of a sense of humor I have not explored. I dunno. But the link I found between how well someone sees the big picture and how good they are at having fun and or how good they are at enabling others to have fun is an interesting facet.

It has only taken me 40 years. I recommend getting a sense of humor.