Life, as it turns out, can be a pretty bad deal.
There are a great many things that remind us of the fact that our comfort and happiness is not at all the prerogative of the universe.Disease, sever disability, war, interpersonal loss, death, self-doubt, shame, guilt, failure.
The list goes on. And, even if you're feeling pretty good about life right now, its really just a matter of time until something bad happens to you. For example, getting a new pet is always a setup for later tragedy, as we all know that (with the notable exception of tortoises) we will outlive them; we know up front that a day will come when we have them put to sleep, or when they die on their own.
Human relationships, of course, bring their own misery. Assuming that you secure lifelong love and close friends, these relationships will terminate in death. Sad funerals are the price we pay for successful love and friendship.
And lest you think you can duck out of pet ownership and human companionship, don't fool yourself. If we find great peace, then you are yourself the prelude to your own sad tragedy, as that peace and happiness is destined to unwind and end in, you guessed it, death.
So the universe has a lot of bleakness and despair in store even for the luckiest among us. Death, suffering, loss...you know, that kind of thing.
Enter comedy.
First, when I talk about comedy I'm not intending to solely talk about comedians. Comedy is everywhere. Its in professional comedians, sure. But comedy is also abundant in Reddit post threads, memes, and interpersonal relationships. Comedy, as a feature of life wherein we laugh at certain aspects of existence (usually our own existence), is everywhere.And what is good comedy? That's hard to pin down, though I stand by what I said in the podcast, which is that I think the best comedy is dark comedy.
When I say "dark comedy", I mean comedy that aims to underline and bring to the forefront of our minds those things in life that thwart our desires. Dark comedy shines a spotlight on our irrational fears, our guilt and shame, our sense of failure, our mortality, our frustrations. Dark comedy is not always dirty comedy; it can be dark without a single swearword, no mention of sex, and nothing "extreme". All it needs to do is bring our attention to some aspect of life that we'd normally try to skip over.
There is some comedy out there that isn't dark, and I'll be frank; I think it's usually some of the worst comedy. Sure, it may get someone to laugh. But I don't see light hearted comedy getting the kind of drink-spitting guffaws that the darker stuff can obtain. One could argue that this says something about our culture, but I tend to think it says something about that at which humans really want...and need...to laugh.
Deep down, even the most naively optimistic person knows that something's "up" with life. It's out to get you. All can be going fine right now, but we both know that eventually a tragedy is going to hit. Maybe you'll walk away from it as a survivor (like burying a parent), or maybe you'll be at its epicenter (in the coffin yourself). Maybe you'll bounce back with minor scars, or maybe you'll be shattered in some ways for life. None of us get out of this thing without hitting up against some pretty miserable moments.
And, I'd wager, even the most well adjusted of us can have some of these less savory truths affect us once in a while, in the form of dark moods, fear, sorrow, and good ol' fashioned dread.
We all already know about the horrors life has in store, even for the luckiest among us. Yet, we all routinely go through our days ignoring these things as best we can, despite knowing that they are hurtling towards us even now.
But every now and then, something truly interesting happens. Hundreds of people pay to get to sit in a big room with one person at the front, and that person gets up and drags out all those things we secretly think and fear into the open. They grin and they mock the whole world. They make fun of the audience either implicitly or explicitly. They tell us their embarrassing stories that we can relate to with our own failures and mistakes. They joke about death, fear, and dread. They articulate our frustrations with the horrible, crushing, but seemingly utterly benign aspects of modern life.
Comedy can break through that fog of denial and shine a spotlight directly upon those things that frustrate, bother, and scare us.
And what do we see when comedy does precisely that? When comedy shines that spotlight on scary things which we avoid during the working hours of the day? We see rooms full of people laughing hysterically. At the comedy act, just as at the funeral or in the hospital waiting room, the veil of normalcy is lifted and we catch a glimpse of our own powerlessness and of the severity of this situation we are in, which we call 'life'.
But in the context of the comedian doing the lifting of this veil, we don't see absolute horror awaiting us. Rather, we see the absurd comedy of it all. Sure, we're going to suffer and die anyway. But as we sit with a room full of friends (or strangers) laughing at that fact, the sting of our frailty and mortality starts to go out a little bit. We've seen the worst the universe can do, and we've giggled at it.
Why do we laugh?
Of the potential reasons that we laugh, the one I find most compelling is that it is a signal to others that all is well. Primates, I've read, do a similar sort of laughing to humans when they play-fight; it signals that "despite appearances to the contrary, all is well right now and there's no need to worry".Is this not a perfect encapsulation of why we might laugh at comedians joking about catastrophe? When the comedian in the room shines a light on all the horror out there waiting for us, it is an implicit reminder that, at least for right now, we're all okay. We are safe. We can laugh at this, together, and revel for a little while in that safety.
Yet I think that the true power of comedy goes deeper than a signal that we're okay for now. Laughter may have originated as a sign that "all is well for now", but we laugh even when things manifestly aren't well at all. The most well adjusted of us can laugh at our own immediate suffering, can laugh at funerals, and can even laugh upon our own deathbed. We can laugh even when we aren't okay.
When we laugh at tragedy, even our own, we remove some of its power over us. Morbid humor can help us cope with death and pain. Self-depreciating humor can help us cope with social failure and loss. We realize, when we laugh, that we can be okay not only in the absence of these things, but we can be okay despite their presence as well.
When we all join in with, say, Patton Oswalt in laughing at his depression, those of use who have depression (like me) get a moment of reprieve from its dread, and we take away some of its power. We learn to see the humor in all things, and thus we stop treating them as if they were either a total disaster or a total blessing.
From this ability to find humor in everything there comes that well-adjustment I was mentioning a moment ago. This well adjusted humor in a person isn't the same as denial or madness. They aren't laughing at their own suffering out of self loathing or pathology of any sort. Rather, they are laughing because they get it, in some profound sense. They have seen their own being for what it is and they found a final triumph or the tragedy of it all in the form of a chuckle.
I'm Not Saying I'm Perfect...
Really, I'm not. But I do think I have a pretty good grip on laughing at myself, so I figured I'd use my own experience as a case-in-point.I have anxiety, depression, and a lot of lingering back and neck pain. I fear failure, loneliness, and regret above all else. I struggle with body image problems, and I'm wracked with self-doubt.
But when I start to feel anxious, I try to joke about it.
When I start to feel depressed, I try to joke about it.
When I hurt the most, I try to joke about it.
When I'm at my lowest points in terms of self-loathing and doubt, I try to joke about it.
I sometimes fail. Sometimes, for instance, the panic attack happens anyway. But I find that, on the whole, when I'm able to crack off morbid jokes about my own suffering (and especially when this is done with friends) that it rounds the edges of those sufferings and takes away some of their bite. It shortens the panic attacks and lessons the severity of the depression. In joking about death, loss, and suffering, I don't think for one moment that I've gone beyond being affected by them. I do, however, feel more at peace with them; I accept that they're coming, and I like to think that even when the worst starts happening I'll be able to draw at least a little strength from dark jokes here and there.
Furthermore, I've seen those close to me who also deal with these issues seem to do better when they're able to laugh at it as well. Those I've seen who handle death and pain best are the ones who appreciate their severity but find a way to laugh despite it.
Conclusion
Maybe consciousness is the shit-end of the deal with life. It leaves us with all the same struggles that plants and insects go through, but with a dose of self-aware guilt, shame, and dread to go along with them. Consciousness makes us sharply and keenly aware of our struggles, our shortcomings, and our ultimate failures. It makes us able to grasp the fact that we're all going to die. Arguably, only consciousness could turn something as simple and basic as pain into something as horrifying as suffering.
But suffering can also be sublime. It can be insightful. It can lead to beautiful revelations and insights about Being, which can be rewarding (and ameliorating) in and of themselves. And, further, given the right mixture of other people around us, we can even come to find suffering...a little bit funny! We can laugh at it.
And even if laughter was the only positive thing that consciousness brought into Being, then I would still count it well worth the cost.