“A physicist, doctor, accountant, lawyer, garbage collector, etc. without a sense of humor can still be terrific at what they do. But a creative person who is humorless could never produce consistently great work in communicating with warmth and humanity to the vast majority of the populace. Humor in creativity is like humor in life. People often ask me, “Does humor work in advertising?” but that’s a stupid question.
Does anyone ever ask, “Does humor work in life?” If humor is appropriate and funny (if it ain’t funny, we ain’t talking humor), it should “work.” The question should be, “How can you possibly create without humor?” Certainly, in all forms of communication, humor is a natural way to win someone’s heart.
In examining my work, lectures, and books I have written over the years, it’s difficult to isolate “humor” as a category because it runs through almost everything I do – and through most of my waking hours. Humor disarms and makes one more accepting of thoughts and images that could be hard to take in serious discourse. Say something serious in a funny way, and you can win over people every time.”
– George Lois, Damn Good Advice
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“A sense of humour leads you to take pleasure in the discrepancies of human nature; it leads you to mistrust great professions and look for the unworthy motive that they conceal; the disparity between appearance and reality diverts you and you are apt when you cannot find it to create it. You tend to close your eyes to truth, beauty and goodness because they give no scope to your sense of the ridiculous. The humourist has a quick eye for the humbug; he does not always recognize the saint. But if to see men one-sidedly is a heavy price to pay for a sense of humour there is a compensation that has a value too. You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humour teaches tolerance, and the humorist with a smile and perhaps a sigh, is more likely to shrug his shoulders than to condemn. He does not moralize, he is content to understand; and it is true that to understand is to pity and forgive.”
– Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up
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It helps to laugh. In particular, at ourselves is ideal.
It’s hard to be an arsehole if you are laughing. Except, of course, if you are pointing and laughing at another’s misfortune.
It is very difficult to hate the person who is making you smile. Why do you think a sense of humour features highly on dating wish lists.
When my Nanna was in hospital, at the end of her life, she joked in her indomitable East End way, making the nurses laugh.
Her son, my dad, did the same. Making jokes at his own expense when he’d been rushed to hospital. It turned out to be his last night. But my last memory of him is of him making the effort to put his concerned family at ease with some silliness.
I hope I’ve inherited the funny when in peril gene. But not the gene for an early exit by heart failure.
There’s only one way to find out: keep living with a pinch of humour. Practice until the whistle blows for the end of the game.
I’m sure I can at least muster some self deprication, before my family have to suffer from myself deprivation.
Conversations With Quotations 