I was talking to my school-age friend yesterday about relationships, philosophy, and life. He’s good for that kind of conversation. Anyways, the matter of humor was raised toward the end of our back and forth, and or whatever reason, I feel motivated to share some insight from this conversation on the nature of humor.
It began when I told him of an encounter with someone I didn’t laugh with. He found this quite bizarre – a fair observation. Him and I laughed together quite often. In high school, on class day, I was nominated for best laugh. He reminded me that my laughter was based in laughing at my own stupidities and being open to criticisms of humor. It’s a kind of humility.
I just googled this, but it turns out I’m not too far off the target here. Humor and humility share the same Latin root humus – meaning earth or ground. In any case, a healthy humor is a call to humility. There is nothing funnier than leveling the dramas of life into comedies that we all share.
Marcus King 