Humor is the Answer, Now What Was The Question?

Leigh Anne Jasheway-Bryant

There are many benefits to being middle-aged. Hot flashes and finally understanding the practical side of the Law of Gravity spring immediately to mind. But the best part is that I no longer have to rely on other people to tell me I don’t have all the answers. I KNOW I don’t have all the answers. In fact, I often forget what the questions are in the middle of a retort. It’s humbling and freeing at the same time.

People who think they DO have all the answers are funny. Not slip-on-a- banana funny. Or even milk-coming-out-their-nose funny. But Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh funny, and really who hasn’t gotten some good yucks out those crackpots?

I don’t have many answers and those I do have are usually things I’ve made up. “Why is the sky blue?” “Because God’s a Democrat?” “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” “Foreplay?” “Can democracy thrive in unstable middle-eastern countries?” “Only if you water it.” Expecting straight answers from someone who makes her living as a comedian is like expecting straight answers from Tony Snow.

Making fun is stupid, silly, and pointless. And that’s the point exactly. The human brain explodes if you feed it a steady diet of death, destruction, environmental degradation, and deficit spending (the four horsemen of the apocalypse, anyone?) Sometimes you just have to let up from the relentless tirade and have a giggle or two. It not only relieves the pressure on your cranium, it also causes more oxygen to reach your brain which increases the chance that you do know as much as you think you know. Not to mention how it takes some of the extra oxygen out of butt, which makes your pants less snug.

When someone has been really sick or badly injured, one of the first things people say to indicate she is on the path to recovery is “She’s got her sense of humor back.” They don’t say “Well, he thinks he’s got the answer to global warming, so he must be okay.” One of the few things I liked about Ronald Reagan – besides the fact that he was brave enough to share a movie set with a chimpanzee and risk the wrath of creationists – was that after the attempt on his life he said to wife Nancy, “Honey, I forgot to duck.”

This week, the world lost Art Buchwald, a man who often reminded us just how funny life can be if you simply keep your eyes open. As he said, “The world itself is a satire. All you're doing is recording it.” And no, he didn’t bring peace to Israel or move the doomsday clock back, but he sure made living in an unstable world a lot more fun.

Me, I don’t have many of the answers. But I do know, as Erma Bombeck said many years ago, “When humor goes, there goes civilization.”

By Leigh Anne Jasheway-Bryant Jan. 20, 2007