An Essay And Article On Humor In Life

The life of man in this world is transient. It is correctly called a nine days’ wonder. But during this short sojourn on this earth man has to undergo a variety of experiences. He enjoys happiness certainly, but only for a limited period of time. The major part of life is preoccupied with struggle, striving, sorrow and suffering. There is a tendency among the majority of the people to spend this life somehow or the other, to pass every second of it complainingly, groaningly, fearfully and fretfully. They don’t live life at all. They always perceive a multitude of sorrows on the horizon. Life in fact tends to become a burden rather than a precious gift of God to be lived fully and happily. They take life so seriously that they find nothing but sufferings, trials and tribulations in life.

Theirs becomes a negative attitude to life. Melancholy, despondency and pessimism become the hallmark of their lives. This tendency -is infectious and affects people who come into contact with them. They thus remain simply messengers of unhappy tidings, cringing and complaining. This negative attitude to life is fraught with serious dangers. In fact, all our ills and miseries in this life can be attributed to this attitude. There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so. If only we could adopt a positive attitude to life, see the beauty and the grace of the Maker in it, perceive the drama so ingeniously woven in the matrix, life would all become a blessing, a supreme gift to be fully lived and enjoyed. It is here that humor comes to our aid. Humor is certainly the elixir of life. It makes life livable and enjoyable. It dispels seriousness, drives away despondency.

Humor For Happiness

It transmutes pain into pleasure, affliction into ecstasy. One can imagine the affliction of being banged. But the same became a source of ecstasy to Chandra Shekhar Azad, Sardar Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev Singh and to a host of other martyrs for the cause of freedom. In short, humor changes our attitude from negative to positive. This was the attitude which enabled the exiled Duke in Shakespeare’s ‘As You like It’ to find ‘sermons in stones’ and beauty and good in everything. The clown and a good many fellows who accompany the Duke into the forest in fact represent humor, in fact the lighter side of life. They sing and dance, laugh and are merry even amidst the worst conditions fate can offer. “Hey ho, the holly, this life is most jolly.”

It is their sense of humor, which is their constant companion which makes life so livable and enjoyable for them. Even the winter wind and the freezing sky which could torment others beyond measure make life sweet and happy. Thus the importance of humor in everyday life can hardly be over emphasized. Laughter is medicine. Laugh once a day, keep the doctor away. These sayings are true upto the hilt and edge. Humor makes family life sweet and pleasant and happy. There cannot be any problem of adjustment between a husband and a wife, if either of them possesses a sense of humor. In fact, the cause of broken families and social relationships can be traced to the lack of a sense of humor. Conflicts, ill-will, jealousy have no room in a group consisting of people possessing a sense of humor.

Those who possess a sense of humor know the true meaning of life. They are knowledgeable persons in the true sense of the term. Those who take life too seriously and make it a hell, both for themselves and for others, are utterly ignorant. An individual loving humor is acquainted with the transient nature of life. Our sojourn on this planet is very short. Let us make the best of it and the most of it. The golden rule must be: live and let live. This can be possible only when we possess adequate sense of humor. Our ills and miseries, sorrows and sufferings will lose all meaning once it is discovered that they are as short as or far shorter than life itself. A truly wise man laughs his sorrows away. He makes others also laugh and thereby contributes in driving out their suffering also.

In conferences or meetings where great decisions are taken, sallies of humor play their own part? In such gatherings one or two individuals possessing a sense of humor will certainly affect the quality of decisions and deliberations. In all social activities humor brings in a ray of light and life. Happy is the home where jokes are cracked, where laughter dominates the scene. Humor belongs to the species of the emotions of fellow-feeling and sympathy. Hence wherever we find humor the latter’s presence is a foregone conclusion. Apart from the above sociological aspect, humor has a physiological aspect, too. A man in humor has his thyroid and parathyroid glands in an active state. The secretions of these glands exercise a salutary effect on the health, both physical and mental. The therapeutic value of humor is a natural corollary. Many diseases can be cured by putting the patient on a good dose of humor.

Humor relieves tension in an individual as well as in a group. It is a befriending factor. It lightens the atmosphere, broadens the outlook and makes room for an active functioning of the emotions of love, Fellow-feeling and sympathy. Humor even sharpens our intellect and helps expanding powers of understanding. It helps things to be understood in proper perspective and hence assists us in avoiding many pitfalls of life. Humor is a positive emotion and thus makes for progress and peace. It has a spiritual significance in as much as it helps its votary to see the same spark running through whole life. An individual loving and practicing humor consciously or unconsciously sees the whole life as one and, therefore, in his scheme of things there is no room for hatred, ill-will, malice, envy, jealousy or enmity. To such an individual, no man is an island entirely of himself, but is a part of the main.

“Every man’s death diminishes me for I am involved in mankind.” (Donne) Considered from this point of view humour is a trait of an enlightened and progressive society, a manifestation of goodness and beauty of it, an expression of the real and the finer sensivities of it. Hence a literature abounding in humour speaks volumes of the greatness of such a society. Unfortunately Indian Hindi literature has lacked this quality. It is certainly to a great extent due to our prolonged enslavement to alien masters. We reached the highest watermark of civilization and culture in the ancient times. The abundance of humour in Sanskrit literature and the lack of it in Hindi literature may help one to understand the point referred to above. Thus the abundance of humor in Greek and Latin drama speaks volumes of the great societies that dominated the scene in ancient days. The French and the Spanish literatures also abound in humor.

Molier in French and Cervantes in Spanish are the master craftsmen of humor, testifying to the greatness of the French and the Spanish societies. English literature, with a host of princes and kings of humor constituting the galaxy of the great artists and humanists, bear eloquent testimony to the greatness of the English race. Thus Chaucer, Shakespeare, Alexander Pope, Oliver Gold Smith, Fielding, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde and Bernard Shaw, to name only a few, have not only enlivened English literature beyond measure, but also have spiritualized its contents. Love and hope are the concomitants of humor and hence the life of any individual or a group dominated by this sentiment will be a life worth-living and worth enjoying. People have realized the importance of humor from the earliest times. In Sanskrit drama, clown plays an important part, which shows that humor was supposed to be an essential part of life. Kings and princes used to have clowns or court jesters to regale the court and relieve the serious atmosphere of state affairs.

Practicing Humor In life

In social customs and practices humor was well taken care of. In various customs of marriage humor dominates the scene. The bride and the bridegroom are subjected to ridicule by young boys and girls of the marriage household. These practices apart from heightening the romantic effect and preventing unpleasant situations, seek to deepen the love and strengthen the ties between the people of the bride’s and the bridegroom’s sides. Humor has also served and still serves the most important purpose of social equality. Jokes can be cut with the equals and thus where there is humor the difference of high and low disappears. Humor is a special gift of God to mankind, which the animal world is perhaps deprived of. It makes us generous and humane, sociable and acceptable. Where there is humor, there is peace. Peace is the normal and natural quality of human beings, so also humor. Violence begins where humor ends.

Can’t we propose that in all meetings and conferences organized to deliberate and discuss important issues affecting mankind there should be good provision of supply of humor? The two World Wars would not have been fought if the leaders of Europe at the Vienna Congress and those at the Paris Peace Conference had been sufficiently regaled by good humor in between different sittings. If there is humor, there will be peace in households and elsewhere. In an education of world citizenship which is sought to be imparted to our youth in a bid to inculcate in them a cosmopolitan outlook; the subject of humor must invariably be included. We are not a perfect individual or a perfect citizen if we have no humor in us. Love and laughter are nectar, drink deep at them. One who hasn’t proper humor can not be a good lover.

The world would indeed be a nice place to live in if every one of us acquired the ability of creating humor and the propensity of being the subject of humor. In short, we should ever remember the transient nature of our life and hence should strive to laugh and make others laugh. So drive away all despondency and laugh. Remember: laugh and the whole world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone. So reader, if you must love someone, ensures that you have humor in proper measure; otherwise your beloved would not return the love you expect.

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