So, this time i am going to try to tackle something that is prtty widespread, and see if there is anything i might have missed along the way. Why is it not only funny to watch other people fail, but when i fail spectacularly, i am even laughing.
First example was last wednesday, my night class had a quiz. I am thinking, ok, a quiz, i go to all the classes, i know kind of what's going on, so i'll study with my buddy Rob for an hour and a half (an eternity in my world) and get it done. What we had there, was a failure to communicate. This "quiz" was really a "test" that counted for 15% of my grade, and took an hour and a half to finish. Oooopppsies. We were pouring over books, trying to read at superhuman speeds, thinking of ways we could get out of taking it, whether or not we could drop the class and still graduate. You name it, we thought of it. So we get to the test, a slide ID test, mind you, of things i have only seen once in my life. I am failing at a superhuman pace. So what do i do? i start telling jokes on the test. I called one of the pre-columbian pieces of art "a fantasia looking hippo trying to give me a high-five" (thats the goofy looking dude you see at the top).
So here i am, taking a very important test, trying to get off not knowing something by telling jokes, by laughing so throughly, that i cant even attempt to take myself seriously.
This morning, i lost a intramural soccer game 12-0. I don't even feel bad, because after their 5th goal, and we had 0 shots on goal, it just became really funny. I was playing goalie, getting scored on left and right, and i can't even muster up enough self-respect to call out defensive assignments to my defenders who would prefer not to be anywhere near the ball.
So why do i laugh at myself and my situation in these instances. I have lost basketball games to eleven 11-9 and been livid with the world, but when i lose 11-2, i don't care at all. Is it a defensive reaction? do i do it because i can see the ridiculousness, even though it is happening to me? What are your guys thoughts, it would be interesting to hear your opinions.
JLKJOTW
How can you tell if there is an elephant in the fridge?
Footsteps in the Butter
I agree with that the closer the score of the game, the more pissed you are when you get second because you were that much closer to first. Where as if it were an Olympic race and I got third place, I would just be happy I got a medal at all. If I was the one getting the silver, I would be disappointed because I wasn’t getting the gold and I was so close. Where as if you are getting killed by the other team, you have to laugh 1) because they obviously need a boost if they feel the need to score on you so much when they are obviously winning, and 2) there is nothing else you can do! So you might as well have fun with it.
ReplyDeleteI think your reaction is something similar to Freud's theory that we were talking about. We use humor in order to counteract difficult situations. There's actually a medical basis behind this. Unhealthy people cannot find humor and thus cannot calm down. In some cases we can find humor and it will help us to calm down and complete a task (maybe not well, but it's done). People who can't find humor in stuff, who get so worked up about everything, have panic attacks, which makes them even less productive. In small bouts, say taking a mathematics test, the lack of being able to calm down and find humor in things causes the problem working part of the brain, called the hippocampus, to shut down. So basically without humor and without intense knowledge of the subject, your brain becomes like a very scrambled rubics cube.
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