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Life as a Laugh

Maybe it is because I spend most of my time working in an academic context.  Maybe it is just because I am obtuse and complicated.  But sometimes it seems to me we all make life too difficult.  That is not to say life does not get difficult.  Lord knows it does…and so do I!  But what can save us from difficult lives?

Humor is the best medicine, I think.  And I don’t know that it saves us from difficult lives.  Perhaps in the end, nothing can save us from difficult lives.  But I am convinced humor can serve us well.  Sometimes life is not as difficult as we make it to be.  Sometimes, life really is difficult---and no one can deny it.  But even in those times, humor helps. 

I am not one who tells jokes.  Mostly, that is because I can’t remember them!  When I hear a good joke and have a hearty laugh, I am sure I will never forget it.  But ten minutes later, I cannot tell the joke!  My humor comes more out of the situation.  I think I can be situation ally funny. 

My humor is not intentional as much as it is accidental.  Jokes are more like artificial humor.  They work, but they don’t last.  My form of humor is not the hearty laugh kind so much as it is the smile, grin, or light laughter.  And this kind of humor is often more memorable.  It is linked to real life.

A couple examples come to mind.  Because I have enjoyed sports most of my life, both come from the sports world.  But interestingly, neither really is about sports.  And both quotations come out of real life.  Neither author of the humor saw the funny line coming and were probably surprised that it was funny.  Such is life, eh?  I did not see it coming…and it was funny.

Yogi Berra has not played baseball for decades.  He was a good catcher for the New York Yankees, but his lasting legacy is his one-liners.  People use “Yogi-isms” without having a clue who he is.  Probably his most famous one-liner is the one that tells you “If you come to a fork in the road, take it.”  But that is not the one I first remembered.

The one that came to mind is Yogi’s comment that “A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore.”  I laugh.  I laugh because it is funny…and it is true.  It is true today: a nickel is not worth a dime anymore.  And it will be even more true tomorrow.  A nickel is not worth a dime anymore.  But a good person—a virtuous person---is worth a dime today and also tomorrow. If I can aspire to be that kind of person---a spiritual person in my mind---then I can be true today and true tomorrow.

The other funny one-liner that I remember also comes from the baseball world.  It actually came from Casey Stengel, long-time manager of the New York Yankees.  It is easy to imagine Stengel facing his team and, then saying, “All right everyone, line up alphabetically according to your height.”  Even when I type this, I laugh.  This one intrigues me because it is a more sophisticated level of humor than Yogi’s.  Alphabetical and height are both good options for lining up, but together they are funny.

This reminds me of all the funny things that can happen to us in tough situations---sometimes, situations of sickness and death.  Both sickness and death are true.  They are true today and true tomorrow.  They will line us up.  It won’t be alphabetically nor by height.  Inevitably, it will be sad. 

But it can be humorous, too.  If I am a spiritual person with a sense about life and a sensibility about living, then maybe I can see that finally life is a comedy and not a tragedy.  Now that’s a laugh!

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