Comedy - The art of jokes

Photo by Monica Silvestre (Pexels)

One thing a lot of people who met me can agree on is the odd fact that I am funny. Funnily enough, for them is that I am not trying to be humorous. The simple fact is that I am incredibly truthful, and people think that it is incredibly funny. And there is nothing I can do about it.

Generally, I don’t shy away from saying certain things that are honest and true but that is not the point of this article. The main point of this article is that I have a tendency to turn to comedy and I want to find out why. 

Looking back at it I don’t know when the comedy started but it probably started when I was fourteen and brand new to the country England. From a personal development standpoint, it would make perfect sense as to why I started with the jokes. New start new me, right?

Back then my humour wasn’t so refined. In England all I did was memorize some jokes I found funny and some snarky remarks too because as a teenager you must have a few remarks and comebacks up your sleeves otherwise you wouldn’t be considered a teenager.

However, those jokes and comebacks were nothing too special since they were the mere repetition of existing tried and true jokes. Nothing against those but it felt impersonal every time I made a joke or a sarcastic comment.

Moreover, memorized jokes delivery felt so unnatural. For one, you have to memorize it which makes the joke delivery stuttered because you have to remember what you memorized. I am not a robot who can spit out jokes in a fragment of a second.

Don’t get me wrong, after some practice runs; I could definitely tell a joke flawlessly without any hesitation or stutter but in the heat of the moment trying to remember a joke you saw once was not the best idea and won´t lead to the best outcome.

During my time in England, my comedic instincts changed. For one (and I have no idea why that is) the British have an interesting sense of humour. If you should turn on a comedy show in the UK, you will probably hopefully understand what I mean.

Since I don’t have the time nor the knowledge to explain British humour, I have found a rather helpful video online explaining in detail how British humour works with some examples so you know exactly what is meant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNFw1XcRu_E

For another, in England, I had a lot of practice. The ability to think of a remark to say at any given moment has significantly improved and the speed at which each remark comes has improved significantly too.

If I can be perfectly honest, in school I was not the nicest person you could meet. Don´t get me wrong, I was far from a mean girl making fun of anyone just because they exist. However, I was not the nicest in the sense of the things I said.

As mentioned above, I am brutally honest and upfront about everything. I don’t believe I have an inch of compassion which somewhat resulted in me having an expressionless face with an impassive tone while delivering the most honest of my indifferent opinions.

That terrific blend of placid signals made for some fun times and some other times when I am considered to be cruel if not psychopathic. Let me be one of the many to say having a cold hard exterior makes for the best of friends and or the worst of enemies.

Why I am sometimes objectively honest is still an unsolvable mystery to many. Part of me believes that as a future scientist, I have to focus on the objective truth all the time since emotions just distort reality to a somewhat unreasonable degree.

However, if the “scientist explanation” is the whole truth as to why I can be coldly objective in the toughest of times, I wouldn’t know. Maybe there is more to it than being a scientist focusing on the truth or maybe it is just that.

To be fair, I don´t say anything I don’t believe to be true (unless I wanted to lie which is a different story altogether) so people should know that I am not trying to be mean. (My definition of truth can be changed which is why I am not afraid to admit wrongdoing but that is a story for another time.)

Anyhow, that concludes my introduction into the world of sarcasm and comedy and coincidentally that would also conclude my time in the UK. One year may seem like a long time but now looking back, it was nothing. As of currently, that was only 5% of my life.

When I arrived in Germany, I was rather shy and held back but that did not stop me from being funny with the people I felt comfortable to be around. To a certain extent, I believed that if I wasn´t funny, I wouldn’t be me.

Back then, my humour was tied to my personality, at least so I believed. If I felt down and couldn´t make others laugh and in return, myself smile, I didn’t feel like myself. Therefore, I had to work through that.

However, after some reflection, I figured out that humour just became somewhat of a self-defence mechanism. I go around making everyone laugh because I didn’t want to face whatever was bothering me and that was unhealthy, to say the least.

If my memory serves me right, I was just a joker of my friend group. Someone who was just there to make the others laugh. Just someone to insert a funny comment in every conversation. Not that it bothered me, but it just seems so superficial.

At that point, I also had some own jokes I would tell instead of memorising jokes everyone already knew. To a certain extent, I viewed my life through a comical lens, seeing everything through a comedic lens making somewhat boring life funnier and more interesting.

After the teenage angst phase passed, things started to turn up. Graduation was just around the corner and knowing that I will never see my classmates ever again, I just stopped giving a fork. Dropping truth bombs left and right. My classmates found it funny even though that was not quite my intention.

One thing I noticed during my time in school was that I could never be considered funny with my male classmates around. Their comedic charisma just overshadowed everything I did but I preferred it that way since the centre of attention was not mine.

Right after school ended, corona started which meant lockdown after lockdown with corona regulations after regulations. My spirit was not too high, but I don´t believe I was the only one feeling somewhat down during the lockdowns.

However, with the endless free time provided by the cancellation of literally every social obligation, I was bored. I had a lot of time on my hands, and I didn’t know what to do with it since I graduated from school and I didn’t have to start university for another month or two.

During that endless amount of time, I had on my hands, I did what everyone did. Binge-watch everything we could get our hands on. It felt lazy but it was a well-deserved break after 12 years of studying and exams.

Luckily for me, there were plenty of comedy shows on Netflix for me to watch. And that is what literally did. After watching some comedian´s Netflix special, I would go back to watch their first comedy shows to see how they started and to fill my time.

It was a comedic journey and somewhat of an eye-opening one. I found some already famous comedians and some good up-and-comers. In the darkest of times, laughing can really shine a light into your life and comedians did a fantastic job of bringing light into a dark life.

What I liked most about comedians is how they are relatable. They are taking regular life experiences and make us, the audience, see the joy and humour in those mundane moments in the day-to-day life.

Of course, there are different types of comedians and not every one of them will joke about everyday life. Those who do are just coincidentally the ones I like the most because it is relatable and does not single out anyone.

There are some comedians, I don’t agree with since there is a fine line between what is considered a joke and what is considered completely inappropriate. Some comedians are not too sensitive and would make rather insensitive jokes, which I would not endorse.

Some other comedians are too open about their opinions which sometimes makes me uncomfortable, but I just find it interesting how comfortable they are with themselves and the skin they live in. I wouldn´t point it out but if they are comfortable doing so, I wouldn’t dare to oppose.

Then there are some comedians who I don’t understand at all. Those are the comedians I see as storytellers rather than comedians. Sometimes I don’t get the joke but sometimes they just aren´t funny. There are just different types of humour and if your comedic wavelength does not match the comedic wavelength of the comedian then many jokes will fall short and that is completely normal.

However, all comedians share the same skill. It is somewhat of a gift to be able to make people laugh at the most boring of things in the darkest of times. Not everyone can see the good/funny in the bad. It is a vital skill to possess in this rather depressing world.

To be honest, comedians were somewhat of a saving grace for me during those long arduous lockdowns because not only is it funny to see some late-night host transition from their studio to their homes but it is somewhat a relief to see that everyone is going through similar things you are going through with the lockdowns and the pandemic.

During the lockdown, I also had a lot of time contemplating the future and by watching those comedians, I believe that if this whole scientist thing does not work out in my favour, I may have a career in comedy because as mentioned people find me funny. I don´t understand why they find me funny but they do and there is nothing I can do about it.

This small change of mind just made me see my boring life through a different lens. I try to make a joke everywhere I go with everything I see. Bring a little humour into my rather humdrum life in a much more refined way since I was doing things in the comedian´s way now. By seeing humour everywhere, I go, some clouds darkening my days just dissipated.

Small unrelated jokes, turned into a routine of some sort. My life was brightening up to a certain extent. This comedy dream led me to learn how to tell an engaging story. I learnt that through writing not-so-funny books, it is the results that count and not the process.

Through this process of seeing everything in a funny story-like manner, I broadened my joke repertoire and somewhat shorted the thinking process to think of a joke. The jokes are constantly being tweaked since a joke can always be funnier.

This joke repertoire of mine made the delivery of my jokes more natural. So in a weird sense of the way, I have achieved the very thing my living-in-England young self wanted to achieve by memorising the jokes. However, now the jokes are somewhat mine and don´t feel so banal.

With this comedic repertoire, I also have something to joke about in every given situation. Now if someone mentions a topic, I would be able to reply with a joke but sometimes jokes are not called for so I also learnt how to read the room a bit better and show some compassion towards others.

Long story short, I think comedy is a fantastic skill to possess since it can not only brighten your own day but it could brighten someone else´s too. Who wouldn´t want to brighten someone else´s day by simply telling a joke?