The world around us is a dynamic place to experience and learn about. On any given day, I can lie down on my bed and scroll for nearly hours finding positive stories on human achievements or even someone eagerly pursuing their passion for art and cooking. Positive stories feel like an adrenaline rush to keep us going even when our lives feel like riding a boat crossing violent waves at sea. Positive stories, however, do have their limits: after all, how many stories of cooking, artwork, and love for nature can you hear if the roof above your head collapses?
For many people, it can be a daily occurrence where the dynamic world that we live in can squeeze the soul out of us and turn our minds into Kesari. Recurring tragedies and the silence towards tragedy can mentally numb us, and can make us feel alienated from not just our surroundings, but from our closest friends. Even personal tragedies can seemingly become a reflection on how we act based on how we express empathy and reach out for someone’s kindness. I for one find myself often feeling pressured by the world around me and my daily routines, and I find similarity amongst my family and closest friends. One can easily say we cry or we comment when absurdity or tragedy hits our lives, but an increasingly chaotic section of people when they see absurdity or personal tragedy, reacts by poking fun.
Laughter could in fact be a way to relieve not just pent-up frustrations, but the botched wizardry of daily life filled with uncertainty. Laughter, and to a larger extent humour seemingly presents both myself and the people around me, as a community who can display both self-control and can remain happy at a time when there are great challenges. Humour being used to discuss and poke fun at the world around us could sound political at first, but can be used even in the most casual settings and in our daily routines. Whether it’s the quality of the food we eat every day, or the assignments and classes that make us pull our hair out, laughter has been a method of releasing internal stress and connecting with other people who too face the same struggles. In a way, humour and the ability to laugh at absurdity make us more human than we think, rather than stoic, lifeless robots from a cyberpunk movie.
I myself remember whenever I got mad over a bad day or felt squeezed by the world around me, I’d not just talk to friends; I’d also draw and even look at memes or tell jokes to other people. I could say absurdity and bad experiences have helped me be a better person through learning from mistakes and past actions, but it’s how we creatively use these memories and how we approach our fellow human beings that really lets humour shine as a way to critique the world around us, make friends, and make life more bearable in a personal fashion.