Jokes and Humor

I've been thinking about Yogananda's anti-joke stance, given that I've heard yogis and the Dalai Lama are both way into the humor of everyday life. I decided that stand-up comedy is a poor method of getting humor across.

I think that proper humor is making light of everyday situations by using comic timing. As a friend or colleague is musing about something is that is odd or strange, you take the opportunity to say "Well, it needs at least a little spackle." Spackle is a funny word, and your friend was just thinking about how there was no way the object would function without a ton of spackle, despite the speech the expert had just given. That would be a proper use of humor.

The way that stand-up comedy works is by taking the audience to the time you and your friend encountered the spackle-free object, and saying the phrase at the right comically-timed moment. Yogananda doesn't say that this is bad, just that we shouldn't do it too much. I think I get what he is saying and the difference between in-the-moment humor and telling a joke.

In-the-moment humor involves everyone present, it shows that you are in tune with other thought processes and understand what they are thinking (and of course bad humor shows the opposite). Telling a joke is taking someone to your funny place, regardless of their thought processes. While it's possible to tell jokes that are in tune with a person's thoughts, telling too many jokes (which Yogananda specifically recommends against) is to ignore the thoughts of others on beleive that one's own experiences are the best entertainment. The folly there is obvious.