Oct 18 2009
Why Do We Laugh
The other day on my way home, while in a fairly foul mood, I was nevertheless laughing hysterically listening to the NPR quiz show “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!” The circumstance was so strange that I started to wonder, why do we laugh?
I wouldn’t have thought about this question had the laugh came to me naturally. But on that occasion, I felt like I was tricked or pulled into something I wasn’t ready for, to say the least. So why did I laugh?
The only thing I could think of was that it was the absurdity that made me laugh. Later, getting into a conversation with ZR. No clear conclusion. It seems that seeing the absurd, or imaging the absurd, can short circuit my laugh nerve, so to speak.
If so, it is kind of strange, think of it. Is it biological? or psychological? Hate being tricked into anything, even a laugh.