Coping and Community

            In Bob Griggs’ article Using Humor as a Coping Tool, he brings up a point I have been wrestling with all semester. In his penultimate paragraph, he says, “I cannot write about using humor in recovery without a caution. Humor can help in many ways, but it can also do harm. There’s a kind of humor that restores our spirits, and there’s also sarcasm that inflicts pain. Unacknowledged anger at another person can so often sneak out this way… I’ve laughed at myself with contempt and fierce anger, which can be emotionally self-harming” (Griggs). Self-awareness with humor is so important. There are many times when I hear a joke or say a joke myself and realize that it does more harm than good. Restructuring the humor so that it results in positivity and healing rather than destruction and pain is crucial for humor to serve a proper function. Humor is like a muscle and if you train it in a certain way, it remembers how it is used. Practicing humor in a positive or negative way will solidify that mode of communication. 

            In the article Communicating Death with Humor by Andrea Lambert South et al., they took a serious and often awkward conversation about death and forced participants to inject humor into it. What I found most interesting was the way in which humor served to build community. South et al. observed that “Shared narratives also create a form of emotional entertainment which mark solidarity and a sense of belonging” (South et al. 7). Not only can humor provide solace for individuals, having conversations that border on trauma can work to transform relationships when there is humor involved. South et. al describe this transformation as the creation of “compassionate communities” (8). The world would be transformed if we had a little bit more focus on compassionate communities. Who doesn’t want to live in a compassionate community?