SENSE OF HUMOR

The Schmulowitz Collection of Wit and Humor (SCOWAH) is the world's second largest collection of humor and folklore (eclipsed only by the House of Humour and Satire collection in Gabrovo, Bulgaria). The SCOWAH collection resides on the sixth floor of the main branch of The San Francisco Public Library in San Francisco, USA. See http://www.sfweekly.com/issues/2000-02-09/bayview.html for full article.

The man who started the collection, Nat Schmulowitz, said that "a vain man, a frightened man, a bigoted man, or an angry man, cannot laugh at himself or be laughed at."

When you can laugh at yourself, it shows that you do not take yourself too seriously. This makes others more comfortable with you. The more comfortable people are with your presence, the less likely they are going to reject you.

Having a sense of humor entertains me when I am alone. An original humorous thought provoking line can keep me smiling inside for a very long time.

Besides, humor is a great tool to educate and persuade others and get your message across to people who otherwise would not want to hear from you.

This is not a how to be humorous website.

If you are just starting out, there are tons of books on how to be humorous and tons of situation comedies on television that can help you find a few choice lines.

There will be times you tell a joke and you end up the only person laughing and nobody else seems to find it funny enough even to smile. It is OK. I know it is OK because I have sense of humor and this still happens to me once in a while.

Don't let this setback discourage you. If you alone find it funny, this is good enough. It may not be funny to others because of the way you tell it.

Sometimes, in the middle of a pretty serious seminar, a funny thought would hit me in my train of thoughts so suddenly and so hard that I have an uncontrollable urge to laugh and I would just laugh briefly and audibly, sometimes causing the lecturer to stop and ask. And I would just answer "Nothing. I am sorry. A funny thought just hit me." It is OK to do that too.

Anyway, I can always get away with potentially socially awkward situations like these because of my sense of humor.

In fact, I find that in order to remain humorous, I have to be able to put up with these two potentially socially embarrassing situations.

The reason is that the success of much of humor, as far as I am concerned, lies in its unexpectedness. Humor often provides me with a new way of looking at things and of seeing from others' points of view.

And I have to be prepared to let that unexpected funny thought come into my consciousness and roll with it in the best way I can, and without the benefit of pre planning that could have made it easier for others to understand.

Some people might find it weird. But I like humorous thoughts hitting me hard from unexpected quarters. This is when I do some of my best original thinking. Therefore, I am prepared to pay the price.

This is one element of my sense of humor.

You have to find your own style of humor.

I personally do not read books on jokes or visit websites devoted to jokes because I find that I cannot remember jokes found in a compartmentalized and out of context manner.

And I do not write down jokes that I come across in my reading or listening. But I do write down humorous stories that I think up myself.

The jokes that I remember the best are those sudden, unexpected twist of humorous lines that I come across while reading a book or a piece of article or hearing a talk on other subjects, or witnessing a thought provoking real life incident.

As a matter of fact, I am a poor repeater of jokes from joke books. Other people's jokes that look funny on paper often don't sound funny when they come out from my mouth.