Humor

A sense of humor is part conditioned, part hereditary and part developed through life experience. Depression is humorless. Mania is over the top. Most of us are able to find a Middle Way of humor with a little effort. There is a great value in developing a sense of humor, from whatever baseline has been handed you by Fate. Remembering to look for the humor in situations and interactions is part of this conditioning process.

Chaplin and Gandhi

Whether it's Schadenfreude or pratfall, humor lightens consciousness. Humor places us in touch with the illogical nonsense of coincidence, which rules much of our lives, no matter how seriously we try to practice or channel our energies. The guru is just as likely to have someone jumping off a building fall on him as he walks down a city sidewalk as the dolt. Neither reality is intrinsically funny, but the coincidence of events themselves tickle our sense of humor, entwined with our horrifying realization of our own tenuous mortality.

As a humanist, who is acutely aware of the progress that could be made by virtue of the need that is all too obvious to me, I require a regular dose of silliness and humor. Those who cannot or will not incorporate humor into their practice are usually a fairly depressing lot. Surrendering to the deep realization of my mortality and the randomness of Nature has actually deepened my own sense of humor. Those who refuse to open their awareness to their real nature as living beings just aren't very much fun in my experience.