Laugh a Little

Isn’t it interesting to think of the things we laugh about, and the things we don’t? Is there ever a time when you have been embarrassed because you found something funny and no one else did? Or have you ever found yourself laughing at something that really shouldn’t be funny? What qualifies a person to have “a good sense of humor”?

I personally find a lot of things funny, most jokes make me laugh, most people make me laugh, and many situations in life really make me laugh. It is not unusual for me to find myself the only one laughing at a “dumb joke” or the only one giggling at someone’s dry humor. Does that mean I have a good sense of humor? I really don’t tell jokes, and there’s a good reason, I’m terrible at it, and I just don’t remember the jokes that I have heard that made me laugh. So I’m not considered one who creates humor (unless you count the sticky situations I get myself into…that definitely can be side-cracking funny or sad depending on how you look at it) but I truly enjoy humor. I am not well-known for my excellent taste in good humor that is for sure, just because I found something funny, I have been told, “DOES NOT MEAN IT’S REALLY FUNNY!!” it simply means that I laughed at it.

All of this got me thinking, “What is humor after all?” and since we live in an instant information at our fingertips kind of world (also known as google world) I looked up the definition and here is what I found:

Humor:

Noun

A comic, absurd, or incongruous quality causing amusement; the faculty of perceiving what is amusing or comical; an instance of being or attempting to be comical or amusing; the faculty of expressing the amusing of comical; comical writing or talk in general; peculiar features, oddities, quirks; mental disposition or temperament; a temporary mood frame of mind; a capricious of freakish inclination, whim or caprice, odd trait; (in medieval physiology) one of the four elemental fluids of the body, blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile, regarded as determining, by their relative proportions, a person’s physical and mental constitution

So as I was reading this definition I was going to leave that last one out (the one that comes from medieval physiology) but then I thought, “That may have something to do with how we can measure humor.” Now this may just be the hour of the morning talking so I apologize if this seems inappropriate but I had to share. Do we only consider something truly humorous if it causes some sort of bodily fluid to escape our bodies? You know those times when you laugh so hard you cry? I have definitely heard tale of those who lose a little bit of bowel control once in a while when something really made them laugh. What about when you laugh so hard that your stomach aches like it’s torn apart (one may think there must be some kind of internal bleeding going on there) or your cheeks feel like they are on fire…. this also may influence the tears streaming down your face.

Well I could go on and on about humor (let's face it I can blabber on if I want to about anything) but alas it is late and I imagine you are thinking, “This is a blog, not a book Nicole, shush already!” So I will leave you with this quote I heard one day that made me laugh…
"One good thing about being imperfect is the joy it brings to others!"

Sorry I don’t know who said it, but this just made me think of all the laughter that my mistakes have brought to many including me.