Holding Tight to Humor

When I'm nervous, I make jokes. So many jokes. Not all of them are funny, but I'm looking for a laugh. Chuckles, guffaws, giggles and snickers are a cultural universal for "hey, it's alirght." When I make a joke around my fellow new students, I am usually awarded with the emotional security I so crave. But, multiple times over the past month I've made a joke in the presence of either an older student or professor. I may as well be preforming stand up to a fish tank. On one such instance my joke failed with an assistant instructor, so I clarified my humorous intentions. "That was a joke. Not a good one." The delivery was funny, trust me. Her response in the most insightful, calming tone that seems to be the default among older students when talking to us baby-seattleschoolites: "You're allowed to be playful here."

GAH! If I'm allowed to be playful, then why doesn't anybody want to play with me? The other babies, unindoctrinated like me, seem to play fine, but these older kids... gosh. I wrote in the margins of my notebook for some class or other the following line. "If I can't laugh, I have nothing." I understand that the point of a therapeutic context is not to be entertaining, but when everything is taken so dang seriously I begin to feel like my soul is drowning.

Laughter is a breath of fresh air, a light in a dark room. Laughter is an evolutionarily honored socialization and stress-relieving technique. When I laugh, it's not to make light of my problems, but to bring light into them. At least, that's what I think it is.

Perhaps my draw to humor is simply a defense mechanism, and an unhealthy one at that. Perhaps I use humor to distance myself from pain, and thereby ignore it. Perhaps a penchant for silliness is a penchant for escapism. But, somehow I don't think so.

I came to this school hoping that I would go through a process of spiritual, emotional, and intellectual formation. But, now I am confronted with the fear that I entered into a context of cookie-cutter like forming practices. I do not wish to become the kind of person who looks you in the eye and says, "you're allowed to be playful," while denying an invitation to play at the same time. I don't want to take myself or my thoughts too seriously. I want to be a person who never loses sight of light in dark places and things. I want to be a person who laughs.

I came to this school hoping that I would leave it with more than I came with. I still believe that this will be the case, but there is a very small part of me that fears that I will leave here having lost my desire to laugh. And if I can't laugh, I have nothing.