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After a few hours of watching the continuous news coverage of the terorrist atacks on 9/11, my friend walked over to the CD player, and put on "It's The End of the World As We Know It". When the song ended, we opened up the DVD player, and watched Die Hard.
When my sister evacuated from Frances, she and her friend made Hurricane Frances Destruction cakes.
Both examples may seem, on the outset, kind of offensive and making light of tragic events.
In times of tragedy, people tend to get overly sensitive, and see any view of making light of the situation a horrible and 'evil' thing to do.
Yes, I know some people can 'go too far', but I think for the most part, being irrereverent is just another healthy way to cope with nerves and stress. What are some of your thoughts on this situation, and what kind of 'irreverent and mildly offensive' humor may you have taken part in in the midst of a tragedy?
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A few weeks before my father died, he stood up from the dining room table and said "I'm going to go lay down." Now understand that my mother has been trying to teach us all the correct usage of lie and lay for decades. We've joked for at least 20 years that when she died we'd put on her tomb "Here Lays Libba Ard", and so on. But when he said that she shook her head and said with honest regret, "He's not ever going to get that." So funny and so sick. It was two years ago that he died, and we still grieve for him a lot. But part of the grief is all the laughter we had together. He was a funny funny person, and liked sick humor. I dunno I think it totally helps to laugh. Even if you are crying while you laugh it's great to laugh.
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My brothers and I came up with some pretty funny and pretty awful coma jokes once, none of which I will repeat here.
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My good friend Bono had some good insights into this phenomenon. While in Sarajevo, he noticed a prevalent attitude of black humor. Someone whose mother was killed by a sniper would be joking about it the next day. This is what he concluded: Humor is the ultimate human freedom. When our lives seemed to be controlled in every aspect by violence and fear, we assert our control by laughing in its face. It's a very common reaction and, I think, an important one.
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By the way, for anyone who hasn't seen Pieces of April, I highly reccommend it. Also, Emma Thompson's film version of the play Wit.
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"Humor is the ultimate human freedom. When our lives seemed to be controlled in every aspect by violence and fear, we assert our control by laughing in its face. It's a very common reaction and, I think, an important one."
Good point, Annie, and he did not have to travel to Eastern Europe to know that, being an Irishman. My favorite sense of humor(if you can generalize such a thing)going, and it emerged from a sad past.
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I had a great grandmother who was always complaining, for as long as I can remember knowing her. The night she died, she had insisted on going to the hospital. She seemed fine, but we took her anyway, and they checked her up.
AFTER she came home from the hospital, she seemed bad - much worse off than when we took her. We wondered if they gave her something they perhaps shouldn't have.
That night, she died in her sleep.
We joked in the family that on her tombstone (if she hadn't been cremated) we should've put "I Told You I Was Sick."
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I've found that humor gets you out of tight spots too. If you can disarm an angry person with a silly comment, you can usually gain enough control of the situation to correct whatever caused the disagreement to begin with.
At least it works for me... Posts: 392 | Registered: Aug 2004
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Humor is my main behavior management tool in school and always has been. I can get kids to stop doing something, and make them laugh at the same time.
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I've used the same technique for behavior management as Elizabeth does. Catching kids off guard with the unexpected and amusing can defuse situations quite handily.
Actual conversation with kid:
Kid. "You know what? You're pissing me off!"
Me. "I'm PAID to piss you off."
Kid. ... then "Oh. Okay."
Another kid:
Kid pipes up from the backseat. "I quit!"
Me. "Quit what?"
"Being a kid."
"REALLY?! I'll take your place. We'll TRADE. You can work a full-time job, go to school full-time, pay rent, car payment, utilities, gas, food, cook your own food, do ALL the chores..."
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I hear she does, Rivka, but the sword and little bee keeper-looking hat thing is extra. She teaches the children, and takes out obnoxious parents in a single gesture.
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Back when I was in school, a Danish guy named Jacob Holdt gave a talk about a book he'd done, American Pictures, about his trip to America. Holdt's got a long, braided beard. He told about how one time he was in Detroit and getting mugged by a couple guys with a gun and things were looking violent; Holdt broke up the situation by pulling out his beard -- which was tucked into his shirt -- and the muggers started laughing at the beard and it eased the tension of the situation.
Posts: 2911 | Registered: Aug 2001
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I have been stressed lately and I have also been having weird mood swings. This is what happened last night:
me:I want curry *I started leafing through the phone book and muttering about my dad and feeling bad about things I cannot control*
my friend:What did you say? you were talking and then you started mumbling and trailing off.
me: I don't want to eat anymore * I started crying *
She came over and sat next to me to try to figure out what was going on, but I couldn't really articulate anything
her:so you are crying because you don't want to eat?
At that point I started to crack up and I was fine after that. Laughter maybe the only thing to help with these damn teenage girl hormones.
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While in Sarajevo, he noticed a prevalent attitude of black humor. Someone whose mother was killed by a sniper would be joking about it the next day. This is what he concluded: Humor is the ultimate human freedom. When our lives seemed to be controlled in every aspect by violence and fear, we assert our control by laughing in its face. It's a very common reaction and, I think, an important one.
