Why do you laugh?

[donk]

I clipped these passages from one of the most profound exchanges I have come across lately, from Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land”, where the Mike—the “Man from Mars”--learns how to laugh, and why humans do it:

“….I've found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts so much . . . because it's the only thing that'll make it stop hurting."

…

“That's why I had to laugh. I looked at a cageful of monkeys and suddenly I saw all the mean and cruel and utterly unexplainable things I've seen and heard and read about in the time I've been with my own people~and suddenly it hurt so much I found myself laughing."

"But- Mike dear, laughing is something you do when something is nice - . . not when it's
horrid."

"Is it?...”

In my ongoing quest for ever more mindfulness, understanding why I do whatever it is I do is the most important thing to me, and I found this insight so emotionally overwhelming to me I fought back tears and the urge to yelp outloud when reading it…rather than weeping or shouting I choose to share it with you.

Does this resonate with you? What is laughter? Why do you laugh?

[Joanne Shepard]

Laughing just feels good

[Wind]

Laughter is our way to cope this insane world and it reminds us of the fact that not everything so serious. Crying heals our souls like laughing does, but it's more easy to laugh, I think.

[jake gittes]

Because it's funny, dude!

[joeecho]

The best laughs are the ones where you're laughing so much it hurts and just a glance at the person you're laughing with starts it all over again.

[Sidney]

Every now and then, like maybe once a year, usually happens when I am extremely tired, beyond making sense, and I will laugh so uncontrollably that tears are forming. And of course, nobody else gets the joke, well, because there is no joke, just something stupid will crack me up. And the more, that nobody else gets it, the funnier it is (to me). I don't know why it happens, but I guess, giddy is the proper word to describe the mind state. But it really does feel good. Kind of a release I guess.

[Clarity]

Robert Monreo wrote three books about his OBE adventures, in them humour was mentioned many times as being a unique human trait.
I can't remember which book as I read them all consecutively, but one book tells of him being shown a merchant ship just off planet earth. When he asked the merchant what he traded in, the merchant told him he came to earth for the humour. Human humor/jokes are highly sort after and considered valuable.

[778 neighbour of some guy]

yesterday I laughed very hard, I am helping out a friend with building an extention to his house ( I lay the bricks because I used to be a bricklayer), he was sanding some beams for the roof and wanted to paint the ends of the beams to protect them from the weather, anywho, he has two daughters 7 and 11, they both burst out of the back door because their crazy little minds came with the idea to help out ( which was fine), we agreed they could paint the ends of the beams, got them paintbrushes, showed them what to do and of they went to paint, suddenly the 11 year old ran out the shed, crying her head off and completely orange from paint, ran into the house, (house now also orange), here comes the good part, apparently her mom threw her in the shower immidiately ( I didnt notice that part) and the shower is next to the kitchen, they are a close knit family and doors dont get locked ( wide open), I walk into the kitchen to get a beer from the fridge, trip over the 5 month old golden retriever bang my head into the fridge, shake my head, oblibious to the girl in the shower in look into the shower, there she was wrapped in a towel, still half orange, she sees me and I see her at the same time and she starts screaming "did you see antyhting, did you see anything, so I yell NOOOOO, grab my beer and run the hell out of there because she was so shocked.

Here is the funny bit, you had to be there honestly, she came to me about an hour later, with an embarassed face face and she said sory for the screaming, I said its ok all I saw was a towel and a lot of orange.

And she said totally honest yeah well, you know, I am getting into my teens now you know, and I completely cracked up because because of the tone of her voice and her eyes when she looked at me when she said that, and so did she because she realised exactly how she looked and what the tone of her voice was, we could not stop laughing for ten minutes, it was hilarious, a stupid dog without a clue jumping around us, funniest thing ever, girls sigh, always suprising even at that age, then her dad came and she told him what happenend, he pissed himself laughing.

[donk]

Humor may be uniquely human, eh? That would make it both prized and resented among those incapable?

There's so many different kinds, and my first thought on thinking this possibility was the "sinister supervillain" maniacal laughs, or the cackle of an evil harpie...the sadistic "sense of humor"...though that was just an association that came to me, I have no real input on it yet, gotta think about it.

I personally have such a wide range of things I find funny, from "sophisticated" stuff you'd have to be educated to get, to the basest mysogonistic or racist jokes (though I don't feel I'm particularly racist or woman-hating). Take my top three movies of all time: 1. The Big Lebowski 2. Dumb & Dumber 3. Pulp Fiction

"High brow" to slapstick, my favorite things to watch, never get old--not sure why. I personally like to switch up from serious or truthfilled dark humor which I lean toward to "brighter" happier joking. There's quite a range and variety, my only thought at the moment on this goes with the "Stranger" theme: something seems to be "funny" when you just don't quite "grok" (Martian word) the "wrongness" of it...but kinda do.

[778 neighbour of some guy]

Posted by donk (here)
Humor may be uniquely human, eh? That would make it both prized and resented among those incapable?

There's so many different kinds, and my first thought on thinking this possibility was the "sinister supervillain" maniacal laughs, or the cackle of an evil harpie...the sadistic "sense of humor"...though that was just an association that came to me, I have no real input on it yet, gotta think about it.

I personally have such a wide range of things I find funny, from "sophisticated" stuff you'd have to be educated to get, to the basest mysogonistic or racist jokes (though I don't feel I'm particularly racist or woman-hating). Take my top three movies of all time: 1. The Big Lebowski 2. Dumb & Dumber 3. Pulp Fiction

"High brow" to slapstick, my favorite things to watch, never get old--not sure why. I personally like to switch up from serious or truthfilled dark humor which I lean toward to "brighter" happier joking. There's quite a range and variety, my only thought at the moment on this goes with the "Stranger" theme: something seems to be "funny" when you just don't quite "grok" (Martian word) the "wrongness" of it...but kinda do.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=QYewT_FuZCI

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=tTc1fs4VGT0