I can't remember very many jokes, although one of my best friends is a consummate entertainer and has an endless supply of jokes and funny stories to tell. Years ago he taught his daughter a kid friendly joke, and it's one of the few jokes I can remember today because I heard him repeat it so many times. It goes like this: "A horse walks into a bar with a set of jumper cables around its neck. The bartender looks the horse up and down and says ruefully: 'I don't mind the long face, just don't start anything'." My friend laughed every time he told this joke, insisting that repetition was they key to making it work. The set up is fairly old and hackneyed, which is partly why I remember and like this joke's very simple punchline.
Comedy is an acquired taste. A great deal of why we laugh at a particular joke has as much to do with how the person tells the joke as how good the joke itself is. Jokes are often specific to their era, especially if based on parody. Everybody has their favourites, some comedy ages well, although a lot does not.
The kid friendly joke about the horse works (or tries to work) based entirely on expectation, double entendres, and sudden realization. The double entendre is a cornerstone of comedy often used to deliver the real message, and may employ innuendo, an explicit dual meaning of a word or phrase, or in some cases a homophone, or word that sounds like another word. Jokes often hide truth within their punchlines, and communicate messages on multiple frequencies.
Many people enjoy sarcasm, although in our Recovery meetings we discuss sarcasm as an example of temper. A great deal of modern humour is based on sarcasm, where irony is expressed through intonation. Sarcastic remarks often state the opposite of what they intend, and so when used as insults or cutting put-downs they relieve the speaker of responsibility for the remark. We say "...officer Frank does a greeaat service for our town," although we mean quite the opposite and the listener is queued by our tone of voice as to our true meaning.
As humour, sarcasm is a lazy device, it requires little thought. Some people develop a habit of expressing themselves this way, they seem to think that the cleverness of their ruse is enough to excuse the negative punch of the insult. In Recovery meetings we strongly discourage this conduct. We do encourage good humour as an antidote to temper, although humour without sarcasm or put-downs is a puzzle for some people.
[Scene: The snack table at a party. Dave stands there drinking a beer, and Kevin walks over.]
[Note: all of Dave's lines are delivered in an exaggerated tone with elongated vowels and odd emphasis.]
Kevin: Great party, huh? I actually don't know anyone at the party, actually, I'm kinda new to the neighborhood, actually, but my friend Chris said "come to the party, I'll introduce you around, you'll know everybody by the time you leave the party." Chris knows everybody, and soon I'll know everybody! 'Course, Chris didn't show up. So I guess I gotta mingle. So here I am mingling! 'Course, mingling really isn't my game, I'm not really a mingler, per se, I was actually in the corner alone mingling - that means I'm not talking to anyone, actually. I saw you over here, I said "there's a guy by himself, why not go over here, I'll mingle with this guy, this guy looks like a mingler," so hi, I'm Derek, pleased to meet you.
[Kevin extends his arm, and they shake hands.]
Dave: Well it certainly IS a plea-sure to meet YOU, ... Derek!
Kevin: I'm sorry if I bothered you.
Dave: Oh no, you're not both-er-ing me, Derek, far from it. There's nothing I would rather DO than just stand here and CHAT with YOU! Y'know - reeeally get to know yooou?
Kevin: Look, I don't think there's any need to be sarcastic.
Dave: Oh, I'm ... not ... being ... sar-cas-tic! Nooo! This is just a little speech impediment. I can't ... help ... it!
Kevin: Okay, I've obviously said or done something wrong to upset you, I'm just gonna apologize and be on my way.
Dave: No, no, no, please STAAAYYY. It's true. I've talked this way ALL MY LIFE. It's made things veeeerrrry dif-fi-cult for me.
Kevin: Yeah! Right!
[Kevin walks away, with Dave calling after him.]
Dave: Hey! Where ya goin'? Come back! I really wannna be YOOUR friend! [to the camera] I'm sooo lonely.
The sarcastic guy skit works because it makes obvious the problems with sarcasm, this is the truth revealed in this 2 minute drama. I think what is brilliant about this bit is that it isn't clear if Dave, the sarcastic guy, really is being sarcastic, or whether he genuinely does have the sarcastic-sounding speech impediment that he claims to have. Either way it doesn't matter, he is alone at the end of the skit, he has effectively alienated his audience with sarcasm.
I worked for a manager for several years who tried to encourage staff through the use of innuendo and suggestive comments. Her remarks about performance, bonuses, and expected work hours were often couched in statements that made implications and were less than clear.
She would occasionally make remarks in staff meetings like, "... every year the management staff compares notes on all the employees, and you know, ... sometimes HR sends out pink slips." This thinly veiled threat carried the bite of telling us that she would see that certain individuals who didn't work sufficiently hard would be fired, however, she didn't say it explicitly. The threatening message was implied and at the time nobody asked for clarification and none was ever offered. I found these sort of exchanges extremely vexing and upsetting. I wasn't sure whether my manager was threatening our work group, whether she was trying to be funny, simply not saying anything very specific, or to what extent these remarks were directed at me personally.
Recognizing the pattern of my frustrations with this manager and how it led to temper took me a long time. In Recovery we say "suppress your temper, express your feelings" although expressing your feelings can be quite difficult at times. I spent a lot of time suppressing my temper around her and only after I was reassigned to work with someone else did it dawn on me that I ought to have been expressing my feelings of confusion by asking for clarification.
Dr. Abraham Low gives an even simpler example where he talks about meeting someone on the street who smiles at you. He writes:
The difficulty begins, however, the moment you go beyond the domain of observation and pass into the area of interpretation. After observing the smile on the man's face you may ask yourself, for instance, what precisely that smile means. It may mean warmth of feeling and joy of seeing you. The proper interpretation, then, would be: fellowship, friendship, good will. Or, it may mean nothing more than conventional politeness. That would be: indifference. If the smile is associated with strained features the proper interpretation might be: annoyance or resentment of your intruding. And finally, the smile may have an expression of irony or sarcasm. In that case, the proper label would be: haughtiness, disrespect and perhaps hostility. This simple example indicates that the pitfalls of thinking reside in interpretation rather than observation. The trouble is that once you have made an observation you feel an imperative urge to interpret it. And if interpretation is difficult even in outer observations, the attempt to apply it to inner experiences increases the obstacles to such an extent that only a mind trained in the techniques and rules of the thinking process can be expected to conquer them.
The puzzle that we encounter here is that even given the simplest of scenarios, we can get tripped up by interpretation of the situation. In Recovery meetings we often use the tool "to know is not to know", which is a reminder that you often do not have a complete understanding of any given situation.
We often feel pressure to be in-the-know, to be cool and hip and to follow the implied meanings of others. For some reason asking for clarification seems either awkward, or something that we feel we should avoid. We may genuinely have misunderstood the statement that someone made. It is also possible that we understood their hidden meaning all too well, however leaving certain statements implied can excuse the speaker of responsibility and prevents the remark from being challenged. Leaving strong implications unaddressed can lead to confusion, frustration, irritation, fear and anger. By asking for clarification and recognizing that we don't have all the information we are applying the tool "to know is not to know".
Humour is good for us, and excellent fun. Lets keep telling jokes as best we can, but lets also be aware that some jokes are expressions of temper and told at the expense of others. I used to try to entertain through the use of sarcasm, and often thought of myself as clever and witty, although I can't say for sure whether my audience was impressed. If you are bad at telling jokes like I am, (I can only get so much mileage out of the story about the horse that walks into the bar) consider that sarcasm may create confusion and temper in others and often won't make you a hit at parties.
Communicating can be hard work for nervous persons, not everyone is an expert joke or story teller. Clever or cutting remarks might make you feel in control, as expressing temper often does, but these words will be poorly received. Using a light conversational touch that does not express temper can be a far more effective strategy. Lately, I've found that patient attempts to learn about the interests of others and share my ideas and experiences are good ways to get to know people. I also tell bad jokes, have you heard the one about the horse that walks into a bar with a set of jumper cables around its neck...
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How Does This Work?
Fear is the Mind Killer
