comedy equals tragedy plus time

September 29, 2024

Remembering How to Bounce Back

There is laughter in the aftermath of our disappointments. Not always, not immediately, but often.

Seek, and ye shall find. Indeed, it will sometimes come to you unsought and unrequested. I will tell you how.

I do not offer this as an optimist or pessimist. I try to be a realist who treated or evaluated approximately 3000 patients. They were either in therapy with me or with psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, and other counselors who wanted my opinion about their clients.

I helped them find the best way forward.

Start here. If you choose it, your task involves recollection and some writing, too.

Consider making a list—any time you want. Remember your youthful embarrassments—the ones in front of a crowd or someone desirable. Add other teenage failures and disappointments, like being “stood up” when your date didn’t alert you to his upcoming absence.

Throw in poor test results and class presentations that found your voice quivering, your face red, and your sweat filling buckets, or so it seemed.

Write each disappointment down.

I know this essay is about overcoming, laughing, and bouncing back. Stay with me.

Recall a teacher who humiliated you, a parent who said things to friends he promised to keep secret. Include your worst first date or a disappointing marriage and divorce. Remember painful physical injuries and illnesses, too.

You will do something with this towering column of written memories, about which I shall say more, but not quite yet.

Think and write about all the movies that brought tears of identification with a character whose life was bested by events. Add to your list the unhappiness you experienced yourself.

Adults have all attended wakes, visitations, and Shivas or will attend them in the future. In the Jewish tradition, a Shiva is seven days of mourning the loss of someone dear.

These rituals are times of grave sadness and, paradoxically, a place where people laugh, sometimes both at once. The laughter is caused by funny incidents involving the deceased that someone witnessed or heard about. Such ceremonies always trigger storytelling.

I have written a private book of memories for my children and grandchildren. It includes some advice for the time after I’m gone, which I am not aiming for any time soon.

They won’t need my suggestions, but my words encourage them to laugh as they look back at me, the man who is now their loving dad or grandfather. We all have quirks; they will grin at some of mine. That is as it should be.

Now for what you’ve been waiting for.

The 20th-century comedian, Steve Allen, said this:

When I explained to a friend recently that the subject matter of most comedy is tragic (drunkenness, overweight, financial problems, accidents, etc.) he said, ‘Do you mean to tell me that the dreadful events of the day are a fit subject for humorous comment?’ The answer is ‘No,’ but they will be pretty soon.

Man jokes about the things that depress him, but he usually waits till a certain amount of time has passed. It must have been a tragedy when Judge Crater disappeared, but everybody jokes about it now. I guess you can make a mathematical formula out of it. Tragedy plus time equals comedy.

No one should minimize anyone else’s losses. For some, recovery requires a miracle. Yet Allen understood that a healing quality exists in the quiet worker we call TIME, like the sands that blow across the centuries and efface the evidence of glorious works and irreplaceable people.

We need distance and mourning to overcome any well-lived life’s inevitable defeats and departures. Even so, before or after funerals, many cannot help but laugh or smile as they recollect the precious one who is gone.

If you create the list I suggested you write, saving the file or putting a hard copy in a drawer is best. Do revisit it on occasion.

The catalog you create might be helpful when life gets the best of you—at work, play, love, or loneliness. Or perhaps when your health is troubled, aging depresses you, unwished things happen to friendships, or money becomes a problem.

Add anything you wish.

I hope the items you wrote remind you of when you experienced your world collapse and believed you would never enjoy a single moment ahead.

Yet, all of you survived and discovered the means and reasons to do so. They remain within you.

Our nature is to rebound and return to the game. Though we take life on with desperate seriousness, laughter and resilience come when we realize our small place in the scheme of things. It helps.

Prospero said in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, 

We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep…”

Laugh every chance you get.

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The first image is a Laughing Buddha Icon by Last of All Life and sourced from Wikimedia Commons. The Join Cubs Anonymous t-shirt comes from Cubs Anonymous. A Tom and Jerry Wall Painting follows it. Finally, a Little Buddha, which can be purchased here: Ceramic Buddha. I have no connection with either of these companies nor do I receive any compensation from them.

June 19, 2022

Does Your Therapist Laugh with You?

She was a retired woman, a bit hard of hearing but quite pleasant. I saw her Monday afternoons, and she always opened our session by asking me about my weekend. One particular day, I answered this way:

          “Oh, we went to a tapas place.”

           “A topless place! “

She shrieked the words, almost hysterical.

Well, eventually, I was able to calm her down. I repeated the problematic word and described the Spanish-style restaurant I’d referred to, not a burlesque show.

Did she ever look at me as she did before the misunderstanding? I sure hope so!

Another question: Is an occasional intentionally humorous quip from your counselor a good idea? What guidance might indicate when and how to use this form of conversation? Not everyone can or should.

Many therapists are serious, reserved, or seriously reserved. They view a “therapeutic distance” as if it is an ethical necessity accompanied by a subtle chill. Others never dismount their professional or “doctor” pedestal.

For those who use a strictly Freudian model, the patient is on a couch from which he cannot see the analyst. Without seeing him, the listener might miss or misinterpret the healer’s clever intent. Since the psychiatrist also remains quietly listening much of the time, he is a bit like the Wizard of Oz, a dignified magician behind a metaphorical screen.

I laughed a lot in my practice, as I hope my writing reveals. While I agree with the need to retain an element of professional detachment for everyone’s sake, I also know humanizing yourself has a place on flat ground. At times, bringing a smile salves a broken heart.

A practitioner’s infrequent levity can lighten the mood. If the client is weeping or relating something uncomfortable is not the moment to attempt this, but some others are.

To insert a giggle, you need to “read” the patient’s emotions and share a comfortable relationship. Thus, the healer must know the sufferer enough to understand when humor will work.

A chuckle should never come at the patient’s expense. Minimizing suffering while it is fresh is also to be avoided.

Making someone laugh is a gift. What’s more, I doubt whether anyone can be instructed in this talent. You have the knack, or you don’t.

My personal physician has it. Years ago, I went to JN with a skin complaint, and he referred me to a dermatologist. The specialist inspected my face and asserted I’d get skin cancer within 10 years.

No hesitation, no other possibilities, no doubts.

Not great news, either.

When I returned to my general practitioner, I reported what the man said. My doc responded, “Did he tell you the date?”

I broke up. My internist lightened my worry with those six words. The other guy was wrong, by the way.

Comedians describe comedy as “tragedy plus time.” They recognize many overwhelming wounds fade, to be laughed about later, sometimes much later if at all.

Well used, mirth permits people to recognize they remain capable of joy, even if for a second. Future happiness might therefore appear possible despite their current circumstances. When that awareness comes with the right touch of lightheartedness, it needn’t always be explained.

Not every unhappiness benefits from this remedy, but it sometimes opens the possibility of a new attitude toward our passage through life.

Jollity introduces the unspoken awareness that life is full of laughable indignities, near misses, and inevitable bruises that could have been much worse. We ruin our lives by making each one unforgettable and indelible, like covering every inch of ourselves with large and small frowning tattoos, all staring back at us.

We are such frail things at times. Comfort comes from knowing others are in the same club and just as vulnerable. By recognizing the absurdities of existence we fortify ourselves for the uncertain days ahead.

The human form is like a tiny spaceship launched without our permission by the folks called mom and dad. No trustworthy map presents itself. Unexpected comets, meteors, and black holes are dark surprises. Brighter and better ones include a moonlit night with someone you love.

Smiling at the small shocks and the narrow escapes allows relief from a dim view of what lies ahead. We even may learn how to prepare for challenging events by noting the errors of others, as well as our own.

Laugh when you can, including at yourself. Merriment and glee make life worth living as much as heroic accomplishments and the offspring who will speed our genes forward in their own spacecraft.

Our parents do right to send us off with hope, a hug, and a smile. What better way to launch the future?

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The single-cell cartoon is Doctor Visit. Author and source unknown. Next comes Spirit of Civilization from Puck magazine, June 17, 1903, housed in the Library of Congress. Finally, Amazing Laughter, photographed by BMK in the Sculpture Park of Vancouver, Canada. It is the work of Yue Minjun. The last two of these were sourced from Wikimedia Commons.