Was at a friend's housewarming party last week and our pastor's family came by as well. One of their daughters apparently is on a roll of riddles and jokes that are probably not really funny (even as far as lame) to us adults. Things like "What is the tallest building in the world? A library, because it has many storeys" and other such jokes were frequently dished out by this pint-sized daughter of theirs. We (the oddballs) cringed and all and even tried telling her to not be like us oddballs who revel in lameness etc. It was quite cute and funny actually.
The thing that caught me after that was the fact that these are the very same jokes that I grew up telling my parents, older ones and friends to. I used to go to bookstores and find the latest joke/riddle books and read them for long periods of time. Some even for hours when I got a little older. I remember thinking these are the funniest things in the world, how can anyone not laugh at such comical brilliance? I would go on and on to my parents and friends, telling them lame joke one after the other and I would laugh myself silly about it while my parents were, erm, less enthusiastic about it. But of course that never really bothered me. I just kept doing my thing.
Like all things, doing your thing will eventually be not your thing. We grow up, tastes change (certainly humour), so not surprisingly these lame jokes were a thing of the past. Which got me thinking, why is it that 5 year olds find this stuff so absolutely funny? Perhaps it is that now armed with a couple of years of solid language skills that they start to make the connection that some words have a double meaning or that some words sound like other words. That probably is a moment of epiphany and for some reason, celebrates this new found discovery with laughter. If that is the case, it is no wonder jokes like these stay on even to the next generation, because kids, regardless of times, love this stuff. While I'm sure parents will get to the point where they will get sick of some of these jokes, I suspect that it is important to humour them or at least acknowledge the jokes. It is at a period of time where kids learn and new connections are formed so it must be encouraged. Humour will follow them through the rest of their lives and it is important for them to learn that laughter pierces through age barriers and sometimes, transcends time. I wouldn't be surprised if kids two generations after me and beyond will use these same jokes.
How we developed humour through sarcasm, exaggeration, slapstick and sometimes crude forms from there becomes a little fuzzy to me. Of course there is some higher level cognition going than how we approach our first experience with humour, word play, that can only come as a result of ongoing maturity. Sarcasm requires context and at the very least recognize tonal changes in speech, exaggeration requires out-of-the-box imagination and the link between that to reality, slapstick requires a little indulgence to our sadistic self (no sane kid is really sadistic) and crude forms requires a certain level of angst coupled with a few other things. These forms of humour don't tend to repeat itself (not word for word exactly) as generations go by, only the principle of the humour remains true. All of which we can only get through taking a bit more salt in our growing minds. And this is where our individual personality takes over. Some hone their humour towards one area, others in different areas. But we will almost always have the ability to do one thing and that is humour through word play, it is the first encounter with non-physically induced laughter and like most firsts, we remember them the most.
Lolz.
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So my current short-term plan dream job just popped up. Super long shot.
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I might need to find another pool kaki soon. I'll put up a job description later on Seek.com.au.
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