Sunday thought: Humor? – Robert Reich

Friends,

Someone wrote me yesterday saying he thought my April Fools submit (“Why I’m running”) was in dangerous style: “Your lame attempt at humor comes in the middle of a senseless war where casualties are mounting and even children are being killed. A monstrous president’s sadistic agents have so far murdered two Americans and continue to terrorize immigrants. And we are losing our democracy. No laughing matter!”

Well, it was an try at humor. And perhaps it was a lame one. I apologize to anybody who, like this fellow, thought it in dangerous style.

But I have to say one thing about humor in darkish instances like this.

We want humor. Trump isn’t any laughing matter however we want aid from the interminable awfulness of him, of his regime, and of the anger and bigotry he’s fueled.

So it’s necessary that we poke enjoyable — not solely at Trump and his lackeys, but in addition at ourselves.

A couple of evenings in the past, I had dinner with some buddies. One associated a hilarious story about how he’d met his partner. Another advised about being fired from their first job, and did it in such a self-deprecating method that that they had us in stitches. I added in my very own follies. We should have laughed for 2 hours straight. I got here dwelling extra refreshed than I’d been in weeks.

Don’t get me improper. I take the problems I care about very significantly. But I strive to not take myself too significantly. In instances like this, if we will’t have a superb chuckle as soon as in awhile — together with at our personal expense — we will simply slide downward into unremitting gloom and doom.

Which is why I typically attempt to lighten these pages with a little bit of humor, even when it doesn’t all the time land precisely proper. Or, as Julie Andrews as soon as put it, a spoonful of sugar helps the medication go down.

In reality, it’s been identified for hundreds of years that humor itself could be good in your well being. Proverbs 17:22: “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength.” Or, in the event you’d choose the quintessentially typical knowledge of the Readers Digest: “Laughter is the best medicine.”

My buddies, I do know these are darkish instances. Which is strictly why it’s so necessary to be looking out for tactics to lighten it.

Please maintain yourselves, and provides an enormous hug to these you’re keen on. Happy Easter, Passover, and spring to all who have fun.

RR

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