13 June 2020 | Humour
Originally published on Wordpress
13 June 2020
Everything in moderation, including moderation.
Having been reminded gently but firmly by a close friend of mine recently, I have decided to take a break from writing about “serious” topics or copying quotes, songs and movie scenes for a while.
Stick to something original, and don’t stop expressing yourself.
So here we go — humour!
I have myself personally sucked at writing humourous content. It’s difficult to create ‘funny’ blogs / written material for me. My style of humour (I believe) is something which is based on context — and very conversational. I am not a guy saying funny things for sure. But given some folks I know and share some common stories with — it’s easy to put in puns or callbacks to previous jokes or just weird observations on an otherwise normal situation.
Why do we laugh? I am not able to recollect exactly where I heard this, but a stand-up comedian explained it beautifully — it’s when you suddenly look at something that you knew all along from a different perspective. And you need not have experienced or lived through it necessarily — but laughter is a process of
#1 Shock / surprise of the new perspective
#2 Sudden realization that this is something others are also realizing now
#3 Reaction to how absurd yet true it is in a weird way
This is why we laugh more often (and loudly) in crowds than alone. This is why we might type “LOL”, or send the giggling emoji but we’re not doing that in real life when we are alone most of the times.
It remains one of the toughest act — to make someone really laugh hard from the bellows of their stomach for an elongated period of time.
2 of my favourite stand-up comedians are Zakir Khan and Ricky Gervais. One is a storyteller — the other uses humour to drop truth bombs. I know I can never be as funny as them, but I hope we all become ‘stand-up’ comics in all our inner circles. Come to think about it — tell me your favourite stand-up comedian, and I will know (or presume) how you are as a human being much more easily than if you tried to describe yourself.
(Apologies for making this a long article, but hey, it’s the weekend and I chose an otherwise ‘lite’ topic and delving into it with all seriousness)
Laughter, for me — is 2 things
- Subversion — Tragedy binds us all together, and is universally recognized; alternatively, comedy is a subjective feeling lying in the sweet spot of somewhere between what we assume is the norm, a twist we cannot fathom, and the connection between the norm and the twist which is a revelation
- Catharsis — Which leads to catharsis: the process of releasing and obtaining relief from strong / repressed emotions
It is one of the most difficult arts that exist — and requires a lot of ingredients — perfect timing, relatability, unique perspective and holding your audience captive for a moment in time! (Which is something clearly I need to learn to have more people reach till here.)
