That's Not Funny

Have you ever heard a joke and thought 'that's not funny' and yet all the people around you were laughing? The reason you didn’t join in wasn’t because it was a weak joke but because you didn't think it was right to laugh at the subject matter.

Your reaction here can’t simply be put down to having a better sense of humour than others because everyone has experienced this situation at some time. And, in general, our differing senses of humour are regarding what we find funny, not what we don't.

This also isn't a question of jokes with questionable ethics as such jokes can still make us laugh; some comedians have built careers around stretching our 'comic boundaries', which in turn have revealed to us our many personal judgements, criticisms and stances on the world around us. What we’re talking about here is not the objective 'correctness' of the subject matter but our personal feelings about the subject matter – and to notice how we often confuse the former with the latter.

Black or dark humour is a good example of subjects we would otherwise suffer about. One purpose of black humour is to alleviate stress by laughing at difficult circumstances. This illustrates that there are no limits on what we will laugh at and we can find the funny side in almost any subject.

Claiming to not like a joke because we are laughing at someone's misfortune doesn’t extricate us from this problem. Most if not all jokes need a fall guy, the question is more why is it ok to laugh at one person and not another.

What we are looking at are subjects we are offended by or have (perhaps unaware) rules about. These are indicators that a theme is personal to us, which in turn means that we have an important thought about the subject in question, and this is something we may not even be aware of. Becoming aware of these important thoughts, can be a useful in-road into understanding ourselves better.

Pat heard the following joke at work one day: 'My girlfriend messaged me on Saturday afternoon to say it's either her or the football. Three hours later I messaged her back saying, ‘It’s you of course'. Pat's workmates fell about laughing while Pat was stony faced wondering what was so funny. More than this, Pat felt slightly annoyed by the joke, it felt like he was personally being laughed at. This bothered him for the rest of the day and Pat made an effort not to forget about it by periodically reminding himself of what had taken place and what he felt about it. That evening, while driving home Pat could see this was still bothering him and as he brought his attention back to what took place, memories started to drift into his mind… Pat remembered his childhood home and his dad watching Match of the Day on a Saturday night with his mother in the other room reading. He remembered they didn't talk much or share any interests and over the years Pat had accepted they were never affectionate towards each other. Looking back, he remembered them as two unhappy people merely co-habiting, in summary he thought, 'My parents didn't love each other'.

This thought upset him greatly. Pat realised this was why he couldn't laugh at the joke, because it unawarely matched his parents’ relationship; and was something that had bothered him his whole life.

This Unfinished Thinking that Pat had about his parents’ lives had unawarely made him unhappy and affected his life. He noticed that this thinking made him feel his life was pointless because, as he saw it, all relationships were doomed to suffer the same fate as his parents’ (they being his main role-models for life). Pat realised the relationship he had with his girlfriend was built on a similar willingness to leave each other in peace and that if it continued this way their relationship would get worse and they too would have lives like his parents.

If it wasn't for the joke that Pat heard, he may never have seen his life for what it was and where it was taking him. Something as innocuous as, to him, an unfunny joke turned out to be the thread with which a bit of pulling produced so much understanding.

We all walk through life with thoughts about ourselves and our lives that are dysfunctional whether we know about them or not. Visible clues to their existence are nuggets that help us find our deeper truths. Notice jokes and particular subjects, that are presented to entertain or inform, but for some reason disturb you instead. Following the thread will help you understand much more about why you think the way you do.

A priest asks the convicted murderer at the electric chair, "Do you have any last requests?”

"Yes," replies the murderer. "Can you please hold my hand?"

Law of Thinking No. 36

'Faults' of the consciousness do not let themselves become the subject of a joke, or of a discussion with an unpredictable outcome.

The Politically Corrective Law