Humor and Misery

A thought occurred to me the other day, the worst winter Chicago has seen in the last 30 years failed to make me feel too crappy. Maybe I was still under the spell of novelty, the white city to me still glistening under the soft white blanket of snow. Maybe the years of living in San Diego, under its ever benevolent Sun, had equipped me with a certain reserve of fortitude which I might have dipped deep into to withstand this winter. Or maybe it was just the fact that I didn't have to shovel my car every morning as a matter of routine. Life must really suck for those who did have to shovel. However, the real reason is probably more interesting than any of these. I think the real reason why I didn't feel too bad about the winter was that the winter seemed to be so much more harsh on everybody else. We, as human beings, almost always derive our happiness and sadness in relation to others. We would never be miserable about all the things we do not have if it were not for those pesky neighbors of ours who seem to have them. Similarly we are never entirely unhappy about the misfortune of others, especially of those who share proximity with us in terms of social order. The heavy hand of culture teaches us that these feelings are wrong but I suspect that for most people these are very instinctive. And if something is instinctive it cannot really be wrong, at least not in my opinion. It may be curbed for pragmatic reasons but that's another issue.

So this winter was pretty harsh on a lot of people. There was no end to people complaining about the record freezing temperatures and about how water was freezing up in their eyes as soon as they stepped out. Talking heads on unfortunate television channels were going ape crazy converting real temperatures to 'wind chill' factors. The music on the radio was glum, just like the overcast sky outside the window. While walking about on the roads, I could see on the faces of those who did venture out, looks of absolute death and gloom. After the first 4 months of bitter winter it seemed as if they had finally given up any hope that spring would ever arrive. Needless to say that all this constant complaining by everybody was a constant source of joy to me. Not because I'd like to see others being miserable (I'd like to see them exactly as happy as I am in fact.) But because all this fake misery is quite hilarious. By fake misery I don't refer to the misery of those who might have had real issues in this severely cold weather. People with very limited means for instance. There's nothing light hearted about their predicament. I am, however, referring to those who have an otherwise comfortable life and only had to venture out into the elements for short durations. I have always been amused by the complaints of those who have a much better life than a vast majority of people around the world. Not only do they seem to lack a certain kind of perspective which would let them see how fortunate they are (at least in specific matters), they also seem to make their lives and experiences worse by giving undue weight to the little problems that they do have. The final outcome of it all is a vicious circle where their misery runs amok in the absence of any check from perspective. Their problems, it appears to me, are largely made up in their own heads and because these problem are largely imagined, they can legitimately be milked for their comedic potential.

This brings me to another important point here. Where does one legitimately source humor from? Humor can never be sourced from the misery of those who have real misfortunes to deal with. There is nothing funny about the sorrows of Werther, to quote a fictional story, or about Turing's demise, to refer to a real one. There is not even satisfaction or happiness to be gained from those whose lives are so significantly worse than ours. Humor can be gained either from the self, in which case it is self deprecating, or from those whose miseries are fake-ish miseries in the larger scheme of things. I feel that both avenues should be exploited for all that they are worth in order to maintain one's own sanity.