December 19, 2024 • 53 mins
What if humor isn't just a subjective experience but a universal tool that shapes our response to life’s challenges? Join us on a whimsical journey as we explore the nature of humor, comparing its elements to those of tragedy and questioning whether comedy is a unique answer to suffering. We’ll dig into the characteristics of humor, from slapstick to dark humor, and highlight personal tales and funny moments that show how humor can sneak up on us in everyday life.
Does humor serve a higher purpose in our emotional toolkit? Our discussion reveals how humor acts like an emotional reward, akin to finding a hidden treasure, and how it helps us cope with life's ups and downs. With nods to the dry wit of characters like Ron Swanson from "Parks and Recreation," we philosophize about humor’s evolutionary role and its ability to help us navigate through anger, fear, and sadness. This chapter is a playful exploration of humor's place in our emotional landscape.
Take a step into the realm of edgy comedy as we challenge the boundaries of humor, discussing how shows like "South Park" and "Family Guy" toe the line of controversy without tipping over. Humor's ability to bind us, even when it skirts moral lines, is dissected with amusing anecdotes about religious figures and cultural symbols. We conclude with a lively reflection on how humor serves as a release from the mundane, inviting all to embrace its mischievous nature.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Angelo (00:02):
Hello everyone, welcome to the Telos Initiative podcast.
I'm Angelo Cole,
Chris (00:07):
I'm Chris Vigil.
Matt (00:08):
And I'm Matt Maes.
Angelo (00:10):
Today we wanted to talk about humor.
Now, humor is an interestingtopic because we don't really
know exactly where it comes from.
We don't know why we laugh atthings.
To have a sense of humor seemsto be more of a subjective thing
(00:35):
in nature, so it's hard to tellif there's like an objective
sense in which humor is real.
But I figured I'd prompt youguys and uh see what you thought
about that is humor real?
That's a good way of putting it.
Is humor actually real or is itall in the mind?
Chris (00:58):
is humor any more or less real than tragedy?
Angelo (01:04):
Depends on what you mean by tragedy, right?
If you mean tragedy in theperformative sense, like a
Shakespearean tragedy, then Ithink that is akin to what humor
is.
But if you mean tragedy as in atragedy, like an actual event
that happens to you, like thedeath of someone in the family
that's objectively real.
Chris (01:26):
If I do remember my lessons from Robot Chicken,
comedy is just tragedy plus time, sure.
Well, there's something to besaid there.
Angelo (01:39):
So is comedy really just a unique response to tragedy
and suffering in our lives?
Is that what you could sum uphumor as I think it's.
Matt (01:53):
it can be a function of that.
Like, let's look at whathappens when something is funny,
right, there's something aboutthat that you can understand.
They have to.
You know, you have tounderstand the joke Right In
order to get it, or it's goingto go over your head.
But there's also something thatis unexpected about it.
Like if you, if you knew what'scoming at the end, or sometimes
(02:17):
, even if you don't know what'scoming at the end, like oh my
God, I know the punchlines, thisone's good, this one's so great
.
Like they're telling you know,like you're the one person who
knows that you've heard thisjoke before, but someone is
telling it to a new group ofpeople and you're like just
waiting for the kind of raucouslaughter to happen.
And you still know like, oh,this is a great joke.
(02:40):
It's like familiar, butdelivered in a novel way, it
seems.
Chris (02:46):
Okay, which?
Matt (02:46):
is a really interesting combination of something that
you can conceive of, and I knowyou're just like itching to get
a Yep.
Angelo (02:56):
I mean, yeah, I think there is something to novelty
about humor right.
Chris (03:00):
Well, sure, there is something novel about humor,
like if I tell a joke to a newgroup of people, that's going to
get me going absolutely also.
At the same time, I just havethis joke that I tell to myself
all the time.
It always brings a smile to myface, even though I know exactly
what the punchline is.
I'm also telling it to myself,like 99% of the time, if I've
(03:22):
got a grocery cart or I'm on asteering wheel in my car and
just pretending like I'm drivinga motorcycle, like broom, broom
, broom broom, Dust pan, dustpan, broom, broom.
And if I want to go really fast,I go vacuum, vacuum and it's
(03:44):
stupid, but it makes me smile me.
Angelo (03:47):
Yeah, that's pretty stupid but that's the thing I
have.
Chris (03:53):
There's no such thing as intelligent humor.
I mean, you can well, Idisagree, I make jokes about
like science or full likerootedphilosophical concepts, but at
the end of the day it's just alook at something chaotic, I
guess, right.
Angelo (04:10):
I don't know.
Well, let's maybe think aboutdifferent reasons why we laugh.
Right, so you have slapstickhumor.
You have people getting kickedin the balls Stepping on a rake.
Stepping on a rake, getting hurtor even just doing an
unexpected physical move, thatgets a laugh out of you.
Why does that get a laugh?
(04:31):
Probably something about theunexpected nature of it.
Maybe there's a littlesuffering in there mixed in and
then there's profanity, right,people love to laugh at
something because generally it'sso ugly to look at that it's
almost like a flipping.
It's almost like an easier wayto look at the dark side of
(04:53):
humanity, right?
Yes, when you make a joke aboutsomething really dark, dark
humor and profanity.
It gets a laugh because maybethere's a discomfort there.
It gets a laugh because maybethere's a discomfort there, or
maybe it's just like oh my gosh,I can't believe they're talking
about this and bringing a lightto it.
Chris (05:10):
Something about that awakens the spirit, right,
absolutely, or something's likeso dark you just have to laugh
at it.
I mean, I think we've heardthat all the time growing up
right, life is just so absurdyou have to laugh about it.
Angelo (05:26):
Sometimes there's also there's also jokes where you're
kind of talking about somethingfamiliar, but it puts a little
twist on the end.
You know, like a joke where youyou start one way, you think
it's going a certain way, andthen all of a sudden it's
completely different than whatyou thought it would be.
And I can't think of a good oneoff the top of my head, but I'm
(05:47):
sure there's some mitchheadberg I got no, I, I got one
yesterday.
Matt (05:50):
I was, uh, I was.
This just randomly came to meand I was laughing about it,
especially like, uh, you know,my two parents like super
christian, right, and I'm likewhat if the like god came out
with a Bible number two and he'sjust like we're telling him
like, oh my God, have you guysheard?
(06:11):
The sequel is here.
It turns out it's twice asthick as the original.
If you thought that you, if yougot a lot out of the first one,
I mean that sucker's dead.
Angelo (06:24):
You got a lot out of the first one.
Matt (06:25):
I mean that's suckers.
Sink your teeth in that thingright it's just I was, I was
just.
I had fits of laughter likedriving down just thinking about
this.
Like they made another one andlike I love the bible I love you
know, I, I hold a lot of valuein the bible.
Angelo (06:43):
I can also look at that and be like what a hilarious
thought, like god just droppedbible number two I mean, and
let's think about what's funnyabout that right part of it is
the bible is consideredsomething sacred, right yeah and
you're almost like making funof it.
There's's a profanity there anda twist there.
(07:05):
It's also unexpected, right?
You wouldn't expect anythingmore about the Bible to be
written.
Matt (07:11):
Yeah.
Angelo (07:11):
I almost feel like explaining it totally kills the
joke.
Matt (07:14):
Well, it does.
Angelo (07:17):
Because you want the novelty to be there.
So explaining it a little moreis like oh my God, shut up.
Matt (07:22):
No, no, no, I appreciate that.
Angelo (07:30):
I still find it hilarious.
Well, I'm glad I didn't kill itfor you.
Let's talk about killing a joketoo.
When you repeat a joke over,and, over, and over and over, it
dies.
Why?
Chris (07:36):
because there's no more novelty to it yep, unless it's a
really stupid joke like mineand you're just like oh life is
hilarious, it just depends justdepends on your type of humor.
Angelo (07:48):
I guess some people can hear the same joke over and over
well, even just now.
Chris (07:53):
I told you the joke a few minutes ago and then I changed
a perspective on it.
You posited a philosophicalthing.
Like you know, dead jokes aredead, whatever.
And then I was like, oh, let'sactually bring up that past
topic again, but look at it froma different angle.
Angelo (08:06):
And we laughed again just now yeah, that something
about, uh, the novelty of it,like think about puns, like all
you're doing you're not evendoing anything dirty or profane,
it's has nothing to do with,like, the dark side of humanity.
All it is is like taking twoconcepts and kind of mashing
them together and creatingsomething clever that people are
(08:28):
like oh my gosh, yeah it's,it's like we're creating
different associations.
Matt (08:37):
There's like there's an aliveness to it too where you're
able to make new neuralpathways about a concept that
you might have thought you'refamiliar with and you're like,
oh my God, this is presented tome in this fun, interesting,
novel way that lights up allthese different parts of my
brain Like I never would havethought of that before, unless
it was presented to me in thisway.
Angelo (09:01):
Absolutely so.
There's a sense of discovery inhumor.
Know, absolutely so.
There's a a sense of discoveryin humor, like when you really
find something funny.
Maybe part of that is there's ajoy in discovering something
that you didn't connect in yourmind and your body's rewarding
you for that yeah, oh, andthat's, that's it.
Matt (09:19):
Let's think about why, why do we have, yeah, the body,
rewarding it?
I like that.
Like why do we respond in this,in this way, you know, like
there's there's a shaking up,there's like a, you know I know
it looks, so I look silly.
Something's funny about it yeah, yeah, but think about it like,
like a belly laugh, or it'slike there's a shaking up inside
(09:43):
you, you know so your body ishaving a reaction like a joyful
you know, joyful shaking upreaction.
Chris (09:51):
It's not just the shaking up either.
It's like there's a smile.
If you're laughing hard enough,you're probably like like
you're silent and you're crying.
Matt (09:59):
You ever had this happen, where you laugh so hard at
something that you kind ofsquint in one eye a little bit.
Angelo (10:04):
Yeah, there's an air of mischievousness to that.
That's probably true.
Chris (10:20):
Mischief Mischief is like a whole category of humor yeah,
the, the batman's arch nemesis,the joker is a causer is as a
mischief maker mischievous chaosagent of chaos.
If you will, yes, yeah, oh,where have we heard that?
It's probably batman yeah it'sthe a Batman movie.
(10:42):
It is the Batman movie, it'sdefinitely Okay so yeah, this is
interesting how about amischief, can we go?
Angelo (10:52):
How about dry?
Chris (10:52):
humor.
Angelo (10:55):
Oh, give me an example.
Well, probably how I justaddressed, you.
Matt (11:00):
I was like it's in the Batman movie.
Chris (11:02):
Yeah, there's dry humor there.
Right, it's in the Batman movie, because it's almost like
deadpan movie.
Yeah, there's dry humor there.
Right, it's in the deadpanmovie.
Angelo (11:06):
Yeah, because it's almost like it was so obvious.
But it's funny to watch yousquirm.
Chris (11:11):
It's fun to pretend like you don't know something like oh
yeah, I didn't know that before.
Angelo (11:15):
It's pretty obvious, yeah like Matt Wals type of
humor deadpan dry humor.
Matt (11:22):
Good old deadpan love it.
Have you guys ever seen uhparks and recreation before?
I've seen a little bit of thatokay, it's like um ron swanson
for the, for people who haven'tseen or aren't familiar, that
dude is the king of deadpan.
Right, he's like this, likeserious, like man's man, he's
got like a mustache, he justknows how to do everything and
(11:45):
he goes to Home Depot.
This guy works a rolls up andhe goes like hey, can I help
with anything?
He just goes.
I know more than you do, Ithink my favorite Ron.
Chris (11:57):
Swanson moment is when he you know he has that young
secretary, april right, he'slike your only job is to make
sure I don't have any meetings.
And he's like a politician likehe needs to have like a whole
bunch of meetings all the timeand she's like I won't let you
down.
She keeps all of the peopleforever.
That's hilarious.
(12:18):
Yeah, she does, but I mean,that's I don't know.
You have to metacognizate aboutthat situation.
It's weird metacognizatingabout humor.
You have to like laugh at itfirst and then think why did I
laugh?
Why?
And it layers upon itself.
Angelo (12:35):
I mean, some people do, some people don't think about it
at all, they're just like haand they move on yeah, but we're
here to metacognizate sir, sowe're gonna go.
We have one job.
That's what they're all sayingyou had one job.
Matt (12:50):
Guys, you have one job well, it's the.
Chris (12:54):
It's the telos initiative .
Right, what's the word?
Our one job is to discover thetelos of humor.
Angelo (12:59):
That's good that's good, let's let's actually dive into
that.
So the telos being the purposeof humor.
So I like to think everyemotion has some sense of
purpose.
Right, anger is there becauseit it gives you adrenaline and
it gives you the capacity toface something dangerous or
something that you, uh, protectyour family, or something like
(13:22):
that protect your, yourpriorities right Protect your
community.
Yeah, it's a defense mechanism,so is fear right?
Fear keeps you away from danger, so you can find purpose in
that.
You should be afraid of thingsthat are dangerous.
If you're afraid of somethingthat isn't dangerous, you have
misplaced fear, sadness.
I think that's probably arelease right.
You build up a lot of tensionpsychologically and you need to
(13:45):
release it somehow and somethingwith the tears and having a
good cry.
You always feel better after areally good cry, right?
Yeah sure there's a tensionrelease there.
Chris (13:56):
So what is humor?
Not only that, though, so yousaid something that anger.
Well, so fear helps you stayaway from the danger.
I would argue that anger helpsyou face a danger, and it
doesn't have to necessarily bephysical, like a tiger, or I
mean, it could be like aspiritual or mental danger too.
Like I'm really putting myselfat risk with my manager if I do
(14:18):
this.
But I dang it like I can't takeany more bs at work, right,
yeah well, we even call it fightor flight response.
That's a part of your braindedicated to anger versus fear
so as time passes on and weexperience more and more
tragedies, especially us in ourmid-30s.
Now, looking back on my life, Ithink we need humor to look at
(14:41):
that tragedy tragedy plus timeand say this can't be all bad.
I need a method of looking atlife in a way that brings a
smile to my face a method oflooking at life in a way that
brings a smile to my face.
Angelo (14:59):
I wonder if humor is something further along the
evolutionary chain and only uh,animals with, like, a certain
level of intellect experience it.
Or if it's like a recentevolutionary trait, or if all
animals have to laugh for somereason and it's built into just
about every creature.
Chris (15:18):
It takes at least some modicum right of rationality to
have humor, doesn't it?
Angelo (15:30):
Well, when I think of an animal that probably has a
sense of humor, I think of achimpanzee.
Matt (15:35):
I was just going to say monkeys Like you see monkeys
straight up like.
Right.
Angelo (15:42):
And it's funny thinking about it because if you think of
humans as evolved monkeys, welook so silly.
When we laugh, we're just likethose chimpanzees.
Matt (15:53):
Like what are you doing If I was an?
Angelo (15:55):
alien and I didn't have humor whatsoever.
If I was like Spock orsomething, I'd be like these
creatures are so weird.
Matt (16:02):
What are these irrational creatures doing?
Angelo (16:04):
They have to freak out and have this bodily reaction
every time they discoversomething.
Matt (16:12):
They're so weird I like to talk about this archetypally
too, because we mentioned the,the trickster, I think yes going
to the magician.
The magician just really thefaculty of, you know, imagining
and exploring and and conceiving, right, but there is the
trickster element that's inthere, right, and this, you know
(16:35):
, this often happens within thatpart of the, that part of our
psyches is we're exploring,we're seeing, like what is it
that?
You know, we're testing these,we're testing out the waters,
we're testing these like darkersides too, and, and you know,
maybe that's a way of like goinginto the, into the darkness
again, like the mischief andbeing able to say like what's
(16:58):
fun about this or like what'senjoyable about going into these
.
Angelo (17:02):
Yeah, there's an exploratory element to it.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Chris (17:06):
Just to briefly recap for our audience um, like a
magician, like a good magicianis like a spiritual leader, but
the trickster is like anintellectual manipulator.
Angelo (17:18):
Right, I'm just, yeah, I also think, um, there's
something to the notion of thetrickster being the inversion of
the sovereign.
So if you think of a king, theking is very serious and the
king takes his role seriously.
He's about order and he's got acrown pointing up and all the
little arrows on the crown arelike aimed higher, and the king
(17:40):
is about what's sacred, right,yeah, and you invert that and
the king becomes the jester andhe's got a crown too, but his
crown points in differentdirections and he's got a
scepter, but it's a set.
It's almost like he's makingfun of the King and he's taking
the seriousness that we have andsaying we can laugh about it
(18:02):
sometimes.
Yeah, and you even see that inum, in our rituals.
Like we have holidays dedicatedto inversion, right, like uh,
something like uh.
Like we have holidays dedicatedto inversion, right, like
something like Mardi Gras.
Chris (18:19):
It's like a celebration.
Angelo (18:21):
It's a carnival.
Carnival meaning meat, meaningthe body.
It's a celebration of the lowerand you have to take the time
to it's revels.
Chris (18:31):
It's a party.
There's something to the time,to it's revels.
Angelo (18:33):
It's a party there's something to the Sabbath there,
right, the seventh day is a dayof rest.
You can't always be stuck inmonotony.
You have to flip things aroundsometimes and twist them and
laugh at them in order to inorder to have a healthy society.
Matt (18:53):
So my wife and I go to this thing called Carnival
Sensual.
It's a quarterly event.
It's a burlesque show.
Angelo (19:03):
Oh, wow.
Matt (19:03):
And so we go to church.
We're like very, you know,spirituality is a very deep,
important part of our livesgenuinely, and we also kind of
like to get down at these eventsfor sure yeah so it's creative,
it's sexy, it's it's funny,it's irreverent in all all kinds
of different ways.
Right and um, we've been to likesix of these that they happen
(19:28):
in denver and they'll alwayshave a different theme around
them.
Right, and if I were todescribe the type of people that
go to these shows orparticipate in these shows, it's
usually people who have been onthe fringes or people who are
like you know, you might thinkof as like weird or, um, some
(19:49):
like outcasts or something likethat.
It's very counterculture, right, and it's a way to release that
, it's a way to to really kindof let loose a lot of ways right
maybe there's a release tolaughter and humor in the
similar way that sadness.
Angelo (20:06):
Sadness is like a response to tragedy, humor is a
response to like novelty, butthere's still a form of release
there I'm going to maintain that, uh, it's still a reaction to
tragedy okay, perhaps not notalways.
Chris (20:22):
I'm not saying that all humor is based on extreme levels
of trauma like a little broombroom joke that's.
Angelo (20:32):
There's nothing traumatic about that, it's just
dumb but there's, but there'sdiscovery there, right even in a
modicum I, I can't, I can'twatch comedy movies all the time
.
Chris (20:44):
Right, there's a time and a space for comedy.
Um, I can't just constantly putit in.
I think you're right in thatit's a release from the mundane.
Angelo (20:55):
Okay, there you go, so there's, oh, there's a.
So it's totally about noveltyright, got you guys.
It's totally about novelty howyou got me with that, because
there's a repetition to yourcycle, like if you're working
six days a week, that week getsexhausting and you need a break
(21:15):
from it and you need some timeto celebrate, to go to the bar,
to kind of do something foryourself.
You need a refresh and then yougo into that week more
productive, Totally.
If you're working out, yourmuscles get tired, you get
fatigue.
You need a rest day in order torecover your muscles get tired,
you get fatigue.
You need a rest day in order torecover your muscles.
(21:36):
And throughout the day, if youjust kept going and going, your
mind gets tired.
You need to sleep after acertain point, and even sleep is
very similar to humor in thatit's almost mysterious what the
origins of sleep are.
We almost don't know exactlywhy we have to sleep, but I
think it has something to dowith breaking mundanity yeah,
(21:59):
and going to go into them themind to.
Matt (22:04):
It's like thinking and take a lot of energy, you know.
So if we're thinking andthinking and thinking all the
time and then after a while youget diminishing returns, on
thinking Like you've beenthinking.
So if you end up gettinganxious and paranoid and all
that type of stuff, I would saythat you're like running on your
(22:27):
tank with regards to the amountof energy that you have Just
like muscle fatigue, rightExactly.
And it's like humor, rejuvenatesand drums up energy in the body
.
We're thinking about whymovement doesn't necessarily
just take energy, but a lot oftimes it gives you energy.
(22:50):
Right, you feel more energizedby these movements, but this is
the shaking in one place.
It's like a really efficientway of being able to move.
Sitting in one place and havingthat joyful release and that
dopamine and all these differentchemicals going through your
(23:13):
body right and and your brain.
You're in a better mood.
You know you're in a betterstate than you were before.
Angelo (23:19):
It's a it's a refresh.
Matt (23:20):
Oh yeah.
Angelo (23:21):
You see that that idea all throughout different
cultures too.
Like, think about baptism,baptism is like a refresh and
it's a lowering into the water,and waters are often a symbol of
chaos.
I mean, think of noah's floodis like a baptism of the world.
Right, there's a renewal there,a going down and coming back up
(23:44):
refreshed and reborn.
Yes, um so in in such apowerful sense, humor is a
descent, not necessarily in anegative way, but sometimes
you're descending into the chaos, into the now, into into the.
(24:15):
I think there is a sense inlike be here now and enjoy the
moment, in humor versus likeaiming forward, aiming forward,
aiming forward.
You get tired of the aim after awhile and you have to come back
to like hey, take a break,enjoy it, you're here, you're
(24:36):
alive yeah, talk gratitude.
Matt (24:38):
Maybe there's a gratitude.
Lover right, talking about thelover archetype, right the being
the being here now and andpleasure and rejuvenation in the
present tense absolutely, yeah,have a little sensuality, a
little sensibility, that's rightthe senses are all there, it's
body.
Chris (24:57):
Body is is always associated with the lower right,
so as you descend, you you movecloser into the body and then,
as you ascend, it becomes moreso I I can't really physically
feel my rationality right, butif I tell a good joke that puts
(25:18):
my rationality on its head, thatcauses me to feel it in a sense
right, In a sick sense.
Matt (25:30):
Well, it's interesting.
Well, it's well, it'sinteresting, well, like, let's
say.
Let's say like you're a comedianon stage and you have like a
bunch of people and you'rehaving a a collective humor
experience right to say thisthis is a fun place to go, like
you are, like you're the onekind of driving and you're the
one telling the jokes, you'rethe one, but you know, but
(25:51):
everyone is vicariously feelingthat way through you too, you
know, similar to how we wouldwatch a character in a movie or
a video game, or playing as thatcharacter, and you, you know,
are able to identify with thatfigure.
Right, so it's like you can bethe actor quote on stage, and
(26:13):
then everyone is also comingalong with you.
So then they're riding on yourgoing into those humorous places
, right?
Yes, so an individualexperience can turn into a
collective experience.
Oh, wow, right, into acollective experience.
Angelo (26:31):
Oh wow, that just lit off a little light bulb in my
head because, thinking about thecollective experience of humor,
a lot of humor is bonding.
Sometimes you're bonding at theexpense of someone else.
Some people can gather togetherand make fun of someone, and
there's like a bonding in makinghumor, but sometimes it's
(26:54):
negative in the sense thatthey're bonding over.
You know, making a skateboardout of somebody, yeah, or it
doesn't necessarily have to be,though.
You can bond in humor aboutanything, making fun of anything
right.
You could even bond overself-deprecation.
So if I make fun of myself, it'sa way for other people to
(27:14):
relate to me and they laugh, andthen you know there's
self-deprecating comedians.
Chris (27:18):
In fact, doing that some sort of self-deprecation takes
the power away from anyone whomight be making fun of you.
They're like oh, I have thispower over you.
I can point and I can laugh.
You're like no, I can point andlaugh at myself.
I can point and I can laugh.
They're like, no, I can pointand laugh at myself.
That's right, jerk, that'sright.
Matt (27:38):
No one can hurt me more than me.
Angelo (27:42):
See Conan O'Brien right All the time oh yeah, so there's
definitely a communal bindingthing associated with humor,
because you never really I meanpeople laugh alone, I guess, but
really it's usually experiencedas like a communal thing, I
laugh by myself all the time.
Matt (28:04):
There's the self-deprecation yeah, but like
we said a moment ago too, about,like laughing at, say, someone
else's expense and you can.
You know this is a veryimportant place to go to.
It's like going back to itbeing a collective experience
(28:24):
and the people that you areincluding in the humor
experience coming along with you, right, like they're able to
laugh and they're able to go tothose places.
Then it's like, you know, weall can laugh at this person.
You know they're.
But but this is alsointeresting where, when we're
(28:44):
living in this time of, like,you know, all this, this is
canceled, this is canceled, allthis type of stuff.
And I've wondered, like, whyshows like South Park or Family
Guy seem to get a pass.
It's like I never hear aboutthat.
You know, is it because theyhave too vast of an audience?
Or maybe is it because they'vemade fun of all these different
(29:07):
groups of peopleindiscriminately, consciously?
Angelo (29:11):
I think there is something about that.
Matt (29:13):
Very intelligently right.
But that's quite mysterious tome, like why they seem to be
able to kind of walk that path.
Angelo (29:21):
It's funny.
It's funny there's a borderthere, right, and it's like
these are things that are okayto make fun of and you step
outside of that border and itbecomes offensive.
So there's some things that youshouldn't joke about.
But you're right, some peopleget a pass for some reason.
So there's some sense ofmorality there, right, where we
(29:41):
allow people to make jokes aboutcertain things, as long as it
meets certain conditions andthere's definitely a.
It probably depends on theculture and it depends on, like,
where sensitivities are.
It could even depend on, youknow, different communities,
like community.
One community might laugh atcertain jokes.
(30:03):
I'm sure stand-up comediansknow this really well.
Certain people will laugh atlike really ugly, profane jokes
about other groups of people orabout themselves, and other
groups will be like that's notfunny, that's not even cool,
because there's a moral boundarythere.
Chris (30:23):
So I think, super subjective, I think, maybe,
think, maybe, maybe thearchetype of humor has to touch
on some spirit of irreverence.
Right, south park, family guy,very irreverent shows, but
they've made every joke in thebook.
Um, I'll mention two.
I think in the earlier seasonsof Family Guy some old lady was
(30:46):
dead and Peter takes her out ofthe coffin and dances with her
to disco music, for whateverreason.
In South Park the maincharacter, cartman, kills Scott
Tenorman's parents and thengrinds them into a food and
makes him eat his parents.
Horrible, very dark, veryirreverent.
(31:09):
We haven't canceled that showyet.
It's been on for like 20million seasons.
Angelo (31:17):
It's hard to cancel established humor because it's
like they've alreadydemonstrated that they have
value, they've demonstrated thataudiences will pay for that and
watch that, and so to all ofthe sudden change your mind and
say, hey, now this isn't okay,there's something wrong there
(31:40):
yeah, well, it's like you gottathink about the numbers too,
like thinking about this, is it?
Matt (31:49):
I mean, this is kind of there are two sides to this one
like one, um, that likesomething is actually just
crossed the line and somethingthat is just way beyond the pill
.
Which.
How do you even measure that?
Like you know, like said one ofthose jokes like that should,
that's pretty, that's prettydark, right, yeah, but that's a
(32:10):
good question.
Angelo (32:10):
Should there be a line?
Matt (32:12):
yeah, um.
And on the other hand, you have, say, you have people who watch
the show and they're like, oh,this is way offensive, this you
know.
Say they're just tuning in forlike the first time.
They'd never seen south parkbefore.
They're like this, oh, this isway offensive.
Say they're just tuning in forthe first time and they've never
seen South Park before.
They're like this should becanceled.
And then you have swaths ofpeople who have been following
(32:33):
the show for many, many, manyyears who are like well, we like
it.
We're going to keep on watching.
There was a generational thingthere.
Angelo (32:41):
I think because there was a whole generation that was
like you can't joke about thistype of stuff, or this is too
profane, like you can't showyour butt on TV or you can't you
know, like some of this stuffis just really ugly, it's not
even funny.
And the next generation waslike, oh, I get to watch this in
secret and my parents will hateit, but they won't let me watch
(33:03):
it.
And now there's like a, there'slike a, a novelty to it, yeah,
and a pushing of the boundaryand there's mischief there
mischief.
There you go, there you go I.
Chris (33:17):
I want to get back on this topic of like, collective
humor.
Okay, because I have a good Ithink.
You know I'm a practicingchristian.
I don't profess to be a goodchristian, necessarily all the
time, for sure, but I practice.
I have a good sense of humorabout jesus.
I have a lot of jokes aboutjesus.
I don't have any jokes aboutodin, okay I, because I'm not
(33:42):
familiar with Odin like as adeity or you know his lore.
That much right, read AmericanGods, watched the Northmen, good
movie, good book.
But what if humor is like ademonstration of like, how well
you know something right?
Familiarity breeds contempt,but it might also breed a good
(34:04):
sense of humor about the topic.
Matt (34:06):
Yeah Well, speaking of that too, you know, being
someone who loves Norse stuffand all things Norse- that's why
I was looking at you, man Dudethanks for the segue, man.
If you read through the poeticedda like there are different
parts of the edda, differentpoems, right.
Some of that stuff, I wasshocked is actually pretty
(34:29):
hilarious, like like some of thesome of this yeah, oh, my god.
Um, some of the stories and thisis, these are like ancient
sacred texts in norse culture,right, you're going through and
there's one story where Loki istrying to get into this party
with all the gods and they'reall in there, and then you know
(34:51):
this other god.
He's like hey, you can't go inthere.
He's like I was not invited,I'm going in there and he just
proceeds to talk shit to everysingle one of them.
He's just drinking and talkingshit about every single one of
them.
He's just drinking and talkingshit about every single one of
these other gods, right, andthere are some who are trying to
, who are trying to like keepthe peace, to be cool, odin
included, right, and he justlike he returns that the
(35:13):
kindness and niceness with, likeyou did this, and that he's
just shreds them, and then they,uh, they end up they end up
just uh, giving him hiscomeuppance and like they um
well, they tie him up and theymake snake venom drip onto him
or something pretty, uh, prettypainful.
It's just like son of a bitch.
(35:35):
I broke in here and trying to.
I'm just reading this.
I'm like these are like sacredtexts like this is hilarious.
Funny because there'sdefinitely a lot of similar
stuff in like the bible.
Angelo (35:48):
Right, you have a, you have some senses of yeah,
profanity.
Jesus tells a joke, jesus tellsin the gospels.
Chris (35:56):
So he's got all these people gathered around him and
he's like what you came to see?
Do you see a guy like shaking areader, like this in the wind?
No, you came to see.
Did you see a guy shaking areed like this in the wind?
No, you came to see, like aprophet, a holy man.
You want holiness?
I can give that to you.
I am the way, the truth and thelife.
Matt (36:13):
That's funny.
I thought of another onerecently too.
It's like you're thinking aboutwas it the Sermon on the Mount?
Was it the Sermon on the Mountwith the loaves and the fishes?
Chris (36:29):
So the Sermon on the.
Mount is its own thing.
The loaves and the fishes are adifferent story, but he
probably said the Sermon on the.
Matt (36:35):
Mount before he did the loaves.
Angelo (36:37):
I think he did do the loaves and fishes right after
the Sermon on the Mount, if Iremember correctly, so I'm not
far off right.
Chris (36:42):
I think You're not far off.
You're accurate.
Matt (36:46):
So they had the loaves and the fishes, but then the masses
then did have a sweet tooth andJesus said check this out.
And he sneezed Jesus sneezesReese's pieces what?
And then the masses did proceedto pick up the pieces from the
(37:06):
ground.
Come on, man come on I don'tknow that one's that one's all
right, it's a little out therefor me there's something about
saying or thinking Jesus sneezesReese's Pieces.
Angelo (37:29):
Even the cadence to the sentence Jesus sneezes, reese's
Pieces, jesus.
Chris (37:35):
I completely missed that.
How did I miss that?
That was super funny, that waspretty cool.
You got him, you got him.
Angelo (37:46):
I heard a really funny joke from a Catholic priest.
He was because Catholics talkabout the Virgin Mary as being
sinless right.
Chris (37:54):
Yeah.
Angelo (37:55):
So he was talking about that story in the Bible where
Jesus is rescuing the prostitutefrom being stoned and he says
everyone who, whoever has notsinned, should cast the first
stone.
And then a huge rock comes andsmacks the prostitute in the
face and then he says Mother,you stay out of it.
(38:15):
Oh, no, damn, damn, would yousay, a boulder just a huge rock.
He just said a huge rock littlevirgin mary hey, she's got
(38:46):
levitation powers man she musthave telekinesis levitate that
damn rock I guess, trying to getback into there was a question
that you asked earlier.
I wanted to expand on that andI can't remember what it was.
(39:09):
Maybe it had something to dowith the purpose of humor.
Chris (39:14):
The telos of humor.
Angelo (39:16):
The telos of humor.
We kind of started getting intoit, Like every emotion has a,
and especially a release fromthe mundane.
Chris (39:24):
I'm sorry, go ahead.
Angelo (39:26):
Yeah, but I guess we kind of touched on that we were
talking about.
There is a release frommundanity, but there's also a
novelty and exploration andthere's a bit of mischief in
there.
So I guess that could sum it up.
Chris (39:39):
There are all kinds of elements in humor.
You probably can't pin anysingle one on every joke or any
combination thereof, right?
Angelo (39:48):
Right.
Matt (39:51):
Oh, think about the big bang, about, like the
nothingness, and then the, youknow, the combustion, the
explosiveness, right, thedrumming up of the energy, the
drumming up of the energy, thedrumming up of aliveness, right,
it's like think aboutexperiencing a mini big bang in
(40:12):
the moment.
You know, it's like that momentof awe that you're like, oh you
know it takes you by surprise,and then you know, that energy
has to go somewhere.
Angelo (40:21):
It might as well turn into kinetic energy.
Chris (40:24):
You know, I think in that , in doing that right, in having
this awe moment, there is likea physical sensation where
you're like, wow, like, youlaugh a little, like, wow, like,
(40:47):
how could something like that Iguess it's the king and the
jester, right this airy,beautiful thing that defies my
reasoning.
My logic is somehow tied alsoto this earth and my own sin,
sinfulness right the, the evilthings that I've done well like
(41:07):
there's a connection there and Idon't know was there humor
before the fall?
Matt (41:13):
hold up, hold up, connect, hold it real quick like part of
the, the sovereign to go intothe.
You know, the leader and thesub, the sovereign and the
jester.
The sovereign, primarily interms of the collective, brings
blessing in different ways.
So it's like I'm going to makeit so that there is this joyful
(41:34):
experience, that there is thiscollective joy, this humor.
I'm going to bring thatblessing to the masses.
I'm going to bring thatblessing not just to myself but
to people around me, right andso then that makes the situation
better okay, well, yes, sure,sure, I'm kind of trying to
(41:57):
think what is is the blessing,the humor in this sense, like
for the jester the humor is theblessing it's the inverting.
Like the sovereign.
Like the sovereign is the onewith the blessing capacity.
And then the jester is the onewho is carrying it out right,
the one who's carrying it outthrough the humor okay well, uh,
(42:21):
that's not.
Chris (42:23):
that conflicts with my understanding of those
archetypes, but you've certainlydelved a lot more deeper into
it than I have.
Okay, I would call, like thesovereign has right, like a
blessing power that calls you upfrom the earth and brings you
into wisdom and holiness andgeneration of prosperity uh, and
(42:46):
the jester does the same thing,inverted.
He brings you down, but in thatsense you can I, I like to think
of it like my yeah, kind oflike that, like the jester like
hey, we're down here on theearth, I can still bring you up,
but we're gonna laugh about itwell, maybe because the jester
is almost an inverter aninverter if the world is already
(43:09):
inverted.
He's a positive force I loveagainst the negative.
Angelo (43:13):
I think that's great he's a flipping of the flipping
perfect, so in dark times whenthere's tyranny, you look to the
comedians to to shine a lightand laugh at the tyranny I would
love to.
Chris (43:29):
I would love to pose a christian metaphor about that
exact idea.
Right, christ, the sinless one,who was the messiah, who
reconciled the earth and theheavens and all of us together,
was crucified right, right sideup.
But peter, who sinned, whodenied christ and his salvation
three times but was redeemed,was crucified, asked to be
(43:54):
crucified upside down.
There is still redemption inthat crucifixion.
Right, peter died a holy man,he's a saint now, but he died
inverted on a cross.
So there's still right, kingjester.
Matt (44:12):
Yeah, but still part of the royal court, that's still.
It's interesting when you thinkof the symbols, right, like we
have the right side up cross andthen we have the upside down
cross and we have ourunderstanding of what those
things mean, right.
Angelo (44:27):
Right.
Matt (44:27):
It's similar to like the pentagram with the right side up
versus.
You know, as we know, likeupside down is usually straight
up satanic right Well you noticehow Satan is an inverter.
Angelo (44:40):
Satan himself is like oh , anytime you want to show
something as satanic, you invertthings yeah, it's like oh, take
a cross, turn it upside down.
Now it's evil, not necessarilyin the case of Saint Peter, you
can try right that's an attemptto invert the good and the
pentagram.
As I understand it is likesomething to do with more Wiccan
(45:05):
, like it's, it's like wiccan itrepresents humanity.
Matt (45:10):
Sometimes it's well, it's, it's a very, it's a complex
symbol, but yeah, tied in withlike magic and nature, and then,
yeah, the upside down is reallylike, yeah, like dark, occult,
I think I think that's prettyagreed upon is that the upside
(45:31):
down pentagram is like the islike the dark, occult side.
Chris (45:35):
So I've only done a little bit of research on this,
but right there's.
Um, oh, who was that guy on themidnight gospel?
Damien eccles.
I Practicing witchcraft user.
Angelo (45:46):
Oh, okay.
Chris (45:46):
He talks about the banishing ritual of the
pentagram, which is you have analtar right with the pinnacle
symbol right side up circlearound it, the whole deal.
Not that, as a Christian, thatI'm necessarily recommending
these things, but it's just howit is.
Now I've read parts of thelevain satanic bible and right,
(46:07):
the, the sigil of baphomet isthe upside down of that pinnacle
.
There's two on top representthe horns of the devil and the
three on the bottom representthe holy trinity being subjected
to the devil's horns that areon top.
Angelo (46:23):
Along with.
Chris (46:23):
Hebrew Leviathan, written in Hebrew, around the circle oh
, interesting.
Matt (46:30):
Oh, and you know, there's also this symbol too.
Angelo (46:34):
It's devil horns right.
Matt (46:36):
Well, this, this is an interesting symbol because this
is like the metal hornspopularized by the inevitable
ronnie james dio, and where hegot it from was I think it was
his grandmother used to do thissign.
This is like a warding againstevil.
This is like a calling to thelight.
Angelo (46:54):
This is oh really, you know I was watching the show
true blood recently.
Matt (46:58):
My, my wife and I've been really getting into this and
there's this character who is,you know, the antithesis to
vampires, right?
She does this whenever shewants to like ward vampires and
they come near her, she puts herhorn, her finger horns, up like
this and then like this, likethis is to bring, make them
(47:18):
subdued.
And then Spider-Man.
Angelo (47:23):
No, but that's I hadn't.
Matt (47:25):
Oh, my God, I hadn't even thought of that.
I hadn't even thought of that.
Angelo (47:30):
So in sign language I don't see if there is a
connection In sign language.
Chris (47:34):
this is I love you.
Okay, and then.
So Spider-Man does thisActually in the comics, doctor
Strange does this to cast hisspells.
Angelo (47:43):
Oh yeah, oh.
So there's a magic element.
Chris (47:46):
Right To that, to this, to this or this, but in.
Angelo (47:49):
Satanism I love you is I love me, okay, Well, levain.
Satanism is all about selfWorship.
Chris (47:58):
Worship, yes, and then there's this.
I don't know if that's actuallyHappy llama, sad llama.
Angelo (48:04):
Itty bitty baby llama.
Chris (48:05):
Crazy llama, super llama, big fat, mama llama, you forgot
.
Matt (48:13):
Llama llama ding dong.
Chris (48:15):
Darn it.
Angelo (48:18):
One other thing I wanted to touch on was tickling.
Chris (48:22):
Okay.
Angelo (48:23):
Laughing because of a physical sensation.
It's strange because there mustbe a novelty to it, because you
can't tickle yourself.
Chris (48:34):
You're sensitive about yeah, you're sensitive about
your body, right?
So if someone else is touchingyou, you're like, oh no, no,
that's sacred, stop that.
Matt (48:52):
No, no, body right.
So if someone else is touching,you're like, oh no, no, that's
sacred, stop that.
But you laugh about it, it'snot painful, it is well.
And going to the archetypes too, it's like the warrior is the
warrior and the lover usuallyboth have to do with the body,
and it's like the warrior is theforthgoing one, the, the action
and the charging, but the, thenthe lover, is the being,
withness and the and thepleasure and the connection.
Angelo (49:08):
It's like that's a very loverly thing, right where it's
like oh, you're in my space, butit's fun, you know I guess,
yeah, there's a crossing, aboundary there, but it's not in
a negative sense, it's in anovel sense, because you don't
know.
It's almost like, I mean, youknow rationally, but your body
doesn't know what to expect.
(49:30):
Maybe.
Chris (49:31):
Well, sure, but if I'm on the battlefield and my opponent
starts tickling me, that's justgoing to piss me off.
Angelo (49:37):
That's not going to make me laugh.
Well, I don't know, maybe.
I mean I've never been in thatsituation, but I can't imagine
tickle fight pillow fight.
We're gonna drop grenades of noyeah because tickling is
(49:59):
definitely seen as a positivething, right.
Chris (50:02):
You tickle people that you love Not to the tickly.
Angelo (50:06):
Well, it can be, though, right.
You tickle people you love, youtickle kids?
Oh sure, I mean your kids.
Matt (50:11):
Not any kid.
Chris (50:13):
Just walk up to kids.
Matt (50:17):
Hey kids.
Angelo (50:18):
It's the tickle monster.
Matt (50:21):
And that was how Josiah got kicked out of the playground
but is there a sense ofbreaking mundanity there?
Chris (50:32):
maybe there's a sense of, there's a sense of novelty
there's a sense of novelty there.
Angelo (50:39):
right, can't tickle myself.
Has to be foreign, unexpected,unexpected, and there's a
mischief there.
Matt (50:47):
yeah, yeah it's like, ah, I'm gonna get ya.
Angelo (50:51):
Yeah, yeah, so I think we're pretty close to like
figuring humor out.
Maybe I like to think so.
Oh, okay, figuring humor out.
Chris (50:58):
Maybe I like to think so oh okay.
See, if I had my notebook Icould be writing all this stuff
down and I'd come up with adefinition of humor.
But I didn't do that today.
Angelo (51:11):
You're going to have to do it on the fly, oh.
Matt (51:14):
God, you got to improv, chris.
Angelo (51:17):
I believe, in you.
Chris (51:19):
Do you have faith in me?
Matt (51:20):
Yes, I give my faith to you, thank you.
Chris (51:25):
That doesn't help me come up with a definition.
Come on.
Angelo (51:28):
Yes, it does okay, I'll give you a chance and if you're
still stuck, I'll think about itokay, let's you want to mull it
over?
Matt (51:43):
Gotta, let him mull on it a little bit.
Angelo (51:45):
Yeah, I gotta chew on it .
Chris (51:46):
I have to chew on an hour worth of information I just
processed.
Angelo (51:52):
Well, at least you laughed while doing it.
Chris (51:55):
Yeah, sure did, sure did.
Humor is the psychologicalelement of unannounced
mischievous, something like that.
If I had a notebook it would bea lot better.
Angelo (52:13):
Is it an element or humor is the capacity to release
energy from the mundane, andhumor is humor is the functional
capacity of release from themundane and mischievous
(52:37):
perception of reality.
Chris (52:40):
Mischievous discovery.
Mischievous discovery ofreality.
Oh, that's cool.
Angelo (52:47):
Okay, we'll run with it.
Okay, alright, honestly, Ithink, on that note, we did
pretty good, unless you guyshave any more thoughts, no, it's
been real Alright.
Well, thank you all for joiningus.
To whoever made it this far, wereally appreciate you sticking
(53:08):
around and listening to us jokeabout humor.
Please like, share, subscribe,do what you can to support the
podcast if you like us, and tunein next time to see more telos
initiative.
Thank you, thank you.
Hello everyone, welcome to the Telos Initiative podcast.
I'm Angelo Cole,
Chris (00:07):
I'm Chris Vigil.
Matt (00:08):
And I'm Matt Maes.
Angelo (00:10):
Today we wanted to talk about humor.
Now, humor is an interestingtopic because we don't really
know exactly where it comes from.
We don't know why we laugh atthings.
To have a sense of humor seemsto be more of a subjective thing
(00:35):
in nature, so it's hard to tellif there's like an objective
sense in which humor is real.
But I figured I'd prompt youguys and uh see what you thought
about that is humor real?
That's a good way of putting it.
Is humor actually real or is itall in the mind?
Chris (00:58):
is humor any more or less real than tragedy?
Angelo (01:04):
Depends on what you mean by tragedy, right?
If you mean tragedy in theperformative sense, like a
Shakespearean tragedy, then Ithink that is akin to what humor
is.
But if you mean tragedy as in atragedy, like an actual event
that happens to you, like thedeath of someone in the family
that's objectively real.
Chris (01:26):
If I do remember my lessons from Robot Chicken,
comedy is just tragedy plus time, sure.
Well, there's something to besaid there.
Angelo (01:39):
So is comedy really just a unique response to tragedy
and suffering in our lives?
Is that what you could sum uphumor as I think it's.
Matt (01:53):
it can be a function of that.
Like, let's look at whathappens when something is funny,
right, there's something aboutthat that you can understand.
They have to.
You know, you have tounderstand the joke Right In
order to get it, or it's goingto go over your head.
But there's also something thatis unexpected about it.
Like if you, if you knew what'scoming at the end, or sometimes
(02:17):
, even if you don't know what'scoming at the end, like oh my
God, I know the punchlines, thisone's good, this one's so great
.
Like they're telling you know,like you're the one person who
knows that you've heard thisjoke before, but someone is
telling it to a new group ofpeople and you're like just
waiting for the kind of raucouslaughter to happen.
And you still know like, oh,this is a great joke.
(02:40):
It's like familiar, butdelivered in a novel way, it
seems.
Chris (02:46):
Okay, which?
Matt (02:46):
is a really interesting combination of something that
you can conceive of, and I knowyou're just like itching to get
a Yep.
Angelo (02:56):
I mean, yeah, I think there is something to novelty
about humor right.
Chris (03:00):
Well, sure, there is something novel about humor,
like if I tell a joke to a newgroup of people, that's going to
get me going absolutely also.
At the same time, I just havethis joke that I tell to myself
all the time.
It always brings a smile to myface, even though I know exactly
what the punchline is.
I'm also telling it to myself,like 99% of the time, if I've
(03:22):
got a grocery cart or I'm on asteering wheel in my car and
just pretending like I'm drivinga motorcycle, like broom, broom
, broom broom, Dust pan, dustpan, broom, broom.
And if I want to go really fast,I go vacuum, vacuum and it's
(03:44):
stupid, but it makes me smile me.
Angelo (03:47):
Yeah, that's pretty stupid but that's the thing I
have.
Chris (03:53):
There's no such thing as intelligent humor.
I mean, you can well, Idisagree, I make jokes about
like science or full likerootedphilosophical concepts, but at
the end of the day it's just alook at something chaotic, I
guess, right.
Angelo (04:10):
I don't know.
Well, let's maybe think aboutdifferent reasons why we laugh.
Right, so you have slapstickhumor.
You have people getting kickedin the balls Stepping on a rake.
Stepping on a rake, getting hurtor even just doing an
unexpected physical move, thatgets a laugh out of you.
Why does that get a laugh?
(04:31):
Probably something about theunexpected nature of it.
Maybe there's a littlesuffering in there mixed in and
then there's profanity, right,people love to laugh at
something because generally it'sso ugly to look at that it's
almost like a flipping.
It's almost like an easier wayto look at the dark side of
(04:53):
humanity, right?
Yes, when you make a joke aboutsomething really dark, dark
humor and profanity.
It gets a laugh because maybethere's a discomfort there.
It gets a laugh because maybethere's a discomfort there, or
maybe it's just like oh my gosh,I can't believe they're talking
about this and bringing a lightto it.
Chris (05:10):
Something about that awakens the spirit, right,
absolutely, or something's likeso dark you just have to laugh
at it.
I mean, I think we've heardthat all the time growing up
right, life is just so absurdyou have to laugh about it.
Angelo (05:26):
Sometimes there's also there's also jokes where you're
kind of talking about somethingfamiliar, but it puts a little
twist on the end.
You know, like a joke where youyou start one way, you think
it's going a certain way, andthen all of a sudden it's
completely different than whatyou thought it would be.
And I can't think of a good oneoff the top of my head, but I'm
(05:47):
sure there's some mitchheadberg I got no, I, I got one
yesterday.
Matt (05:50):
I was, uh, I was.
This just randomly came to meand I was laughing about it,
especially like, uh, you know,my two parents like super
christian, right, and I'm likewhat if the like god came out
with a Bible number two and he'sjust like we're telling him
like, oh my God, have you guysheard?
(06:11):
The sequel is here.
It turns out it's twice asthick as the original.
If you thought that you, if yougot a lot out of the first one,
I mean that sucker's dead.
Angelo (06:24):
You got a lot out of the first one.
Matt (06:25):
I mean that's suckers.
Sink your teeth in that thingright it's just I was, I was
just.
I had fits of laughter likedriving down just thinking about
this.
Like they made another one andlike I love the bible I love you
know, I, I hold a lot of valuein the bible.
Angelo (06:43):
I can also look at that and be like what a hilarious
thought, like god just droppedbible number two I mean, and
let's think about what's funnyabout that right part of it is
the bible is consideredsomething sacred, right yeah and
you're almost like making funof it.
There's's a profanity there anda twist there.
(07:05):
It's also unexpected, right?
You wouldn't expect anythingmore about the Bible to be
written.
Matt (07:11):
Yeah.
Angelo (07:11):
I almost feel like explaining it totally kills the
joke.
Matt (07:14):
Well, it does.
Angelo (07:17):
Because you want the novelty to be there.
So explaining it a little moreis like oh my God, shut up.
Matt (07:22):
No, no, no, I appreciate that.
Angelo (07:30):
I still find it hilarious.
Well, I'm glad I didn't kill itfor you.
Let's talk about killing a joketoo.
When you repeat a joke over,and, over, and over and over, it
dies.
Why?
Chris (07:36):
because there's no more novelty to it yep, unless it's a
really stupid joke like mineand you're just like oh life is
hilarious, it just depends justdepends on your type of humor.
Angelo (07:48):
I guess some people can hear the same joke over and over
well, even just now.
Chris (07:53):
I told you the joke a few minutes ago and then I changed
a perspective on it.
You posited a philosophicalthing.
Like you know, dead jokes aredead, whatever.
And then I was like, oh, let'sactually bring up that past
topic again, but look at it froma different angle.
Angelo (08:06):
And we laughed again just now yeah, that something
about, uh, the novelty of it,like think about puns, like all
you're doing you're not evendoing anything dirty or profane,
it's has nothing to do with,like, the dark side of humanity.
All it is is like taking twoconcepts and kind of mashing
them together and creatingsomething clever that people are
(08:28):
like oh my gosh, yeah it's,it's like we're creating
different associations.
Matt (08:37):
There's like there's an aliveness to it too where you're
able to make new neuralpathways about a concept that
you might have thought you'refamiliar with and you're like,
oh my God, this is presented tome in this fun, interesting,
novel way that lights up allthese different parts of my
brain Like I never would havethought of that before, unless
it was presented to me in thisway.
Angelo (09:01):
Absolutely so.
There's a sense of discovery inhumor.
Know, absolutely so.
There's a a sense of discoveryin humor, like when you really
find something funny.
Maybe part of that is there's ajoy in discovering something
that you didn't connect in yourmind and your body's rewarding
you for that yeah, oh, andthat's, that's it.
Matt (09:19):
Let's think about why, why do we have, yeah, the body,
rewarding it?
I like that.
Like why do we respond in this,in this way, you know, like
there's there's a shaking up,there's like a, you know I know
it looks, so I look silly.
Something's funny about it yeah, yeah, but think about it like,
like a belly laugh, or it'slike there's a shaking up inside
(09:43):
you, you know so your body ishaving a reaction like a joyful
you know, joyful shaking upreaction.
Chris (09:51):
It's not just the shaking up either.
It's like there's a smile.
If you're laughing hard enough,you're probably like like
you're silent and you're crying.
Matt (09:59):
You ever had this happen, where you laugh so hard at
something that you kind ofsquint in one eye a little bit.
Angelo (10:04):
Yeah, there's an air of mischievousness to that.
That's probably true.
Chris (10:20):
Mischief Mischief is like a whole category of humor yeah,
the, the batman's arch nemesis,the joker is a causer is as a
mischief maker mischievous chaosagent of chaos.
If you will, yes, yeah, oh,where have we heard that?
It's probably batman yeah it'sthe a Batman movie.
(10:42):
It is the Batman movie, it'sdefinitely Okay so yeah, this is
interesting how about amischief, can we go?
Angelo (10:52):
How about dry?
Chris (10:52):
humor.
Angelo (10:55):
Oh, give me an example.
Well, probably how I justaddressed, you.
Matt (11:00):
I was like it's in the Batman movie.
Chris (11:02):
Yeah, there's dry humor there.
Right, it's in the Batman movie, because it's almost like
deadpan movie.
Yeah, there's dry humor there.
Right, it's in the deadpanmovie.
Angelo (11:06):
Yeah, because it's almost like it was so obvious.
But it's funny to watch yousquirm.
Chris (11:11):
It's fun to pretend like you don't know something like oh
yeah, I didn't know that before.
Angelo (11:15):
It's pretty obvious, yeah like Matt Wals type of
humor deadpan dry humor.
Matt (11:22):
Good old deadpan love it.
Have you guys ever seen uhparks and recreation before?
I've seen a little bit of thatokay, it's like um ron swanson
for the, for people who haven'tseen or aren't familiar, that
dude is the king of deadpan.
Right, he's like this, likeserious, like man's man, he's
got like a mustache, he justknows how to do everything and
(11:45):
he goes to Home Depot.
This guy works a rolls up andhe goes like hey, can I help
with anything?
He just goes.
I know more than you do, Ithink my favorite Ron.
Chris (11:57):
Swanson moment is when he you know he has that young
secretary, april right, he'slike your only job is to make
sure I don't have any meetings.
And he's like a politician likehe needs to have like a whole
bunch of meetings all the timeand she's like I won't let you
down.
She keeps all of the peopleforever.
That's hilarious.
(12:18):
Yeah, she does, but I mean,that's I don't know.
You have to metacognizate aboutthat situation.
It's weird metacognizatingabout humor.
You have to like laugh at itfirst and then think why did I
laugh?
Why?
And it layers upon itself.
Angelo (12:35):
I mean, some people do, some people don't think about it
at all, they're just like haand they move on yeah, but we're
here to metacognizate sir, sowe're gonna go.
We have one job.
That's what they're all sayingyou had one job.
Matt (12:50):
Guys, you have one job well, it's the.
Chris (12:54):
It's the telos initiative .
Right, what's the word?
Our one job is to discover thetelos of humor.
Angelo (12:59):
That's good that's good, let's let's actually dive into
that.
So the telos being the purposeof humor.
So I like to think everyemotion has some sense of
purpose.
Right, anger is there becauseit it gives you adrenaline and
it gives you the capacity toface something dangerous or
something that you, uh, protectyour family, or something like
(13:22):
that protect your, yourpriorities right Protect your
community.
Yeah, it's a defense mechanism,so is fear right?
Fear keeps you away from danger, so you can find purpose in
that.
You should be afraid of thingsthat are dangerous.
If you're afraid of somethingthat isn't dangerous, you have
misplaced fear, sadness.
I think that's probably arelease right.
You build up a lot of tensionpsychologically and you need to
(13:45):
release it somehow and somethingwith the tears and having a
good cry.
You always feel better after areally good cry, right?
Yeah sure there's a tensionrelease there.
Chris (13:56):
So what is humor?
Not only that, though, so yousaid something that anger.
Well, so fear helps you stayaway from the danger.
I would argue that anger helpsyou face a danger, and it
doesn't have to necessarily bephysical, like a tiger, or I
mean, it could be like aspiritual or mental danger too.
Like I'm really putting myselfat risk with my manager if I do
(14:18):
this.
But I dang it like I can't takeany more bs at work, right,
yeah well, we even call it fightor flight response.
That's a part of your braindedicated to anger versus fear
so as time passes on and weexperience more and more
tragedies, especially us in ourmid-30s.
Now, looking back on my life, Ithink we need humor to look at
(14:41):
that tragedy tragedy plus timeand say this can't be all bad.
I need a method of looking atlife in a way that brings a
smile to my face a method oflooking at life in a way that
brings a smile to my face.
Angelo (14:59):
I wonder if humor is something further along the
evolutionary chain and only uh,animals with, like, a certain
level of intellect experience it.
Or if it's like a recentevolutionary trait, or if all
animals have to laugh for somereason and it's built into just
about every creature.
Chris (15:18):
It takes at least some modicum right of rationality to
have humor, doesn't it?
Angelo (15:30):
Well, when I think of an animal that probably has a
sense of humor, I think of achimpanzee.
Matt (15:35):
I was just going to say monkeys Like you see monkeys
straight up like.
Right.
Angelo (15:42):
And it's funny thinking about it because if you think of
humans as evolved monkeys, welook so silly.
When we laugh, we're just likethose chimpanzees.
Matt (15:53):
Like what are you doing If I was an?
Angelo (15:55):
alien and I didn't have humor whatsoever.
If I was like Spock orsomething, I'd be like these
creatures are so weird.
Matt (16:02):
What are these irrational creatures doing?
Angelo (16:04):
They have to freak out and have this bodily reaction
every time they discoversomething.
Matt (16:12):
They're so weird I like to talk about this archetypally
too, because we mentioned the,the trickster, I think yes going
to the magician.
The magician just really thefaculty of, you know, imagining
and exploring and and conceiving, right, but there is the
trickster element that's inthere, right, and this, you know
(16:35):
, this often happens within thatpart of the, that part of our
psyches is we're exploring,we're seeing, like what is it
that?
You know, we're testing these,we're testing out the waters,
we're testing these like darkersides too, and, and you know,
maybe that's a way of like goinginto the, into the darkness
again, like the mischief andbeing able to say like what's
(16:58):
fun about this or like what'senjoyable about going into these
.
Angelo (17:02):
Yeah, there's an exploratory element to it.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Chris (17:06):
Just to briefly recap for our audience um, like a
magician, like a good magicianis like a spiritual leader, but
the trickster is like anintellectual manipulator.
Angelo (17:18):
Right, I'm just, yeah, I also think, um, there's
something to the notion of thetrickster being the inversion of
the sovereign.
So if you think of a king, theking is very serious and the
king takes his role seriously.
He's about order and he's got acrown pointing up and all the
little arrows on the crown arelike aimed higher, and the king
(17:40):
is about what's sacred, right,yeah, and you invert that and
the king becomes the jester andhe's got a crown too, but his
crown points in differentdirections and he's got a
scepter, but it's a set.
It's almost like he's makingfun of the King and he's taking
the seriousness that we have andsaying we can laugh about it
(18:02):
sometimes.
Yeah, and you even see that inum, in our rituals.
Like we have holidays dedicatedto inversion, right, like uh,
something like uh.
Like we have holidays dedicatedto inversion, right, like
something like Mardi Gras.
Chris (18:19):
It's like a celebration.
Angelo (18:21):
It's a carnival.
Carnival meaning meat, meaningthe body.
It's a celebration of the lowerand you have to take the time
to it's revels.
Chris (18:31):
It's a party.
There's something to the time,to it's revels.
Angelo (18:33):
It's a party there's something to the Sabbath there,
right, the seventh day is a dayof rest.
You can't always be stuck inmonotony.
You have to flip things aroundsometimes and twist them and
laugh at them in order to inorder to have a healthy society.
Matt (18:53):
So my wife and I go to this thing called Carnival
Sensual.
It's a quarterly event.
It's a burlesque show.
Angelo (19:03):
Oh, wow.
Matt (19:03):
And so we go to church.
We're like very, you know,spirituality is a very deep,
important part of our livesgenuinely, and we also kind of
like to get down at these eventsfor sure yeah so it's creative,
it's sexy, it's it's funny,it's irreverent in all all kinds
of different ways.
Right and um, we've been to likesix of these that they happen
(19:28):
in denver and they'll alwayshave a different theme around
them.
Right, and if I were todescribe the type of people that
go to these shows orparticipate in these shows, it's
usually people who have been onthe fringes or people who are
like you know, you might thinkof as like weird or, um, some
(19:49):
like outcasts or something likethat.
It's very counterculture, right, and it's a way to release that
, it's a way to to really kindof let loose a lot of ways right
maybe there's a release tolaughter and humor in the
similar way that sadness.
Angelo (20:06):
Sadness is like a response to tragedy, humor is a
response to like novelty, butthere's still a form of release
there I'm going to maintain that, uh, it's still a reaction to
tragedy okay, perhaps not notalways.
Chris (20:22):
I'm not saying that all humor is based on extreme levels
of trauma like a little broombroom joke that's.
Angelo (20:32):
There's nothing traumatic about that, it's just
dumb but there's, but there'sdiscovery there, right even in a
modicum I, I can't, I can'twatch comedy movies all the time
.
Chris (20:44):
Right, there's a time and a space for comedy.
Um, I can't just constantly putit in.
I think you're right in thatit's a release from the mundane.
Angelo (20:55):
Okay, there you go, so there's, oh, there's a.
So it's totally about noveltyright, got you guys.
It's totally about novelty howyou got me with that, because
there's a repetition to yourcycle, like if you're working
six days a week, that week getsexhausting and you need a break
(21:15):
from it and you need some timeto celebrate, to go to the bar,
to kind of do something foryourself.
You need a refresh and then yougo into that week more
productive, Totally.
If you're working out, yourmuscles get tired, you get
fatigue.
You need a rest day in order torecover your muscles get tired,
you get fatigue.
You need a rest day in order torecover your muscles.
(21:36):
And throughout the day, if youjust kept going and going, your
mind gets tired.
You need to sleep after acertain point, and even sleep is
very similar to humor in thatit's almost mysterious what the
origins of sleep are.
We almost don't know exactlywhy we have to sleep, but I
think it has something to dowith breaking mundanity yeah,
(21:59):
and going to go into them themind to.
Matt (22:04):
It's like thinking and take a lot of energy, you know.
So if we're thinking andthinking and thinking all the
time and then after a while youget diminishing returns, on
thinking Like you've beenthinking.
So if you end up gettinganxious and paranoid and all
that type of stuff, I would saythat you're like running on your
(22:27):
tank with regards to the amountof energy that you have Just
like muscle fatigue, rightExactly.
And it's like humor, rejuvenatesand drums up energy in the body
.
We're thinking about whymovement doesn't necessarily
just take energy, but a lot oftimes it gives you energy.
(22:50):
Right, you feel more energizedby these movements, but this is
the shaking in one place.
It's like a really efficientway of being able to move.
Sitting in one place and havingthat joyful release and that
dopamine and all these differentchemicals going through your
(23:13):
body right and and your brain.
You're in a better mood.
You know you're in a betterstate than you were before.
Angelo (23:19):
It's a it's a refresh.
Matt (23:20):
Oh yeah.
Angelo (23:21):
You see that that idea all throughout different
cultures too.
Like, think about baptism,baptism is like a refresh and
it's a lowering into the water,and waters are often a symbol of
chaos.
I mean, think of noah's floodis like a baptism of the world.
Right, there's a renewal there,a going down and coming back up
(23:44):
refreshed and reborn.
Yes, um so in in such apowerful sense, humor is a
descent, not necessarily in anegative way, but sometimes
you're descending into the chaos, into the now, into into the.
(24:15):
I think there is a sense inlike be here now and enjoy the
moment, in humor versus likeaiming forward, aiming forward,
aiming forward.
You get tired of the aim after awhile and you have to come back
to like hey, take a break,enjoy it, you're here, you're
(24:36):
alive yeah, talk gratitude.
Matt (24:38):
Maybe there's a gratitude.
Lover right, talking about thelover archetype, right the being
the being here now and andpleasure and rejuvenation in the
present tense absolutely, yeah,have a little sensuality, a
little sensibility, that's rightthe senses are all there, it's
body.
Chris (24:57):
Body is is always associated with the lower right,
so as you descend, you you movecloser into the body and then,
as you ascend, it becomes moreso I I can't really physically
feel my rationality right, butif I tell a good joke that puts
(25:18):
my rationality on its head, thatcauses me to feel it in a sense
right, In a sick sense.
Matt (25:30):
Well, it's interesting.
Well, it's well, it'sinteresting, well, like, let's
say.
Let's say like you're a comedianon stage and you have like a
bunch of people and you'rehaving a a collective humor
experience right to say thisthis is a fun place to go, like
you are, like you're the onekind of driving and you're the
one telling the jokes, you'rethe one, but you know, but
(25:51):
everyone is vicariously feelingthat way through you too, you
know, similar to how we wouldwatch a character in a movie or
a video game, or playing as thatcharacter, and you, you know,
are able to identify with thatfigure.
Right, so it's like you can bethe actor quote on stage, and
(26:13):
then everyone is also comingalong with you.
So then they're riding on yourgoing into those humorous places
, right?
Yes, so an individualexperience can turn into a
collective experience.
Oh, wow, right, into acollective experience.
Angelo (26:31):
Oh wow, that just lit off a little light bulb in my
head because, thinking about thecollective experience of humor,
a lot of humor is bonding.
Sometimes you're bonding at theexpense of someone else.
Some people can gather togetherand make fun of someone, and
there's like a bonding in makinghumor, but sometimes it's
(26:54):
negative in the sense thatthey're bonding over.
You know, making a skateboardout of somebody, yeah, or it
doesn't necessarily have to be,though.
You can bond in humor aboutanything, making fun of anything
right.
You could even bond overself-deprecation.
So if I make fun of myself, it'sa way for other people to
(27:14):
relate to me and they laugh, andthen you know there's
self-deprecating comedians.
Chris (27:18):
In fact, doing that some sort of self-deprecation takes
the power away from anyone whomight be making fun of you.
They're like oh, I have thispower over you.
I can point and I can laugh.
You're like no, I can point andlaugh at myself.
I can point and I can laugh.
They're like, no, I can pointand laugh at myself.
That's right, jerk, that'sright.
Matt (27:38):
No one can hurt me more than me.
Angelo (27:42):
See Conan O'Brien right All the time oh yeah, so there's
definitely a communal bindingthing associated with humor,
because you never really I meanpeople laugh alone, I guess, but
really it's usually experiencedas like a communal thing, I
laugh by myself all the time.
Matt (28:04):
There's the self-deprecation yeah, but like
we said a moment ago too, about,like laughing at, say, someone
else's expense and you can.
You know this is a veryimportant place to go to.
It's like going back to itbeing a collective experience
(28:24):
and the people that you areincluding in the humor
experience coming along with you, right, like they're able to
laugh and they're able to go tothose places.
Then it's like, you know, weall can laugh at this person.
You know they're.
But but this is alsointeresting where, when we're
(28:44):
living in this time of, like,you know, all this, this is
canceled, this is canceled, allthis type of stuff.
And I've wondered, like, whyshows like South Park or Family
Guy seem to get a pass.
It's like I never hear aboutthat.
You know, is it because theyhave too vast of an audience?
Or maybe is it because they'vemade fun of all these different
(29:07):
groups of peopleindiscriminately, consciously?
Angelo (29:11):
I think there is something about that.
Matt (29:13):
Very intelligently right.
But that's quite mysterious tome, like why they seem to be
able to kind of walk that path.
Angelo (29:21):
It's funny.
It's funny there's a borderthere, right, and it's like
these are things that are okayto make fun of and you step
outside of that border and itbecomes offensive.
So there's some things that youshouldn't joke about.
But you're right, some peopleget a pass for some reason.
So there's some sense ofmorality there, right, where we
(29:41):
allow people to make jokes aboutcertain things, as long as it
meets certain conditions andthere's definitely a.
It probably depends on theculture and it depends on, like,
where sensitivities are.
It could even depend on, youknow, different communities,
like community.
One community might laugh atcertain jokes.
(30:03):
I'm sure stand-up comediansknow this really well.
Certain people will laugh atlike really ugly, profane jokes
about other groups of people orabout themselves, and other
groups will be like that's notfunny, that's not even cool,
because there's a moral boundarythere.
Chris (30:23):
So I think, super subjective, I think, maybe,
think, maybe, maybe thearchetype of humor has to touch
on some spirit of irreverence.
Right, south park, family guy,very irreverent shows, but
they've made every joke in thebook.
Um, I'll mention two.
I think in the earlier seasonsof Family Guy some old lady was
(30:46):
dead and Peter takes her out ofthe coffin and dances with her
to disco music, for whateverreason.
In South Park the maincharacter, cartman, kills Scott
Tenorman's parents and thengrinds them into a food and
makes him eat his parents.
Horrible, very dark, veryirreverent.
(31:09):
We haven't canceled that showyet.
It's been on for like 20million seasons.
Angelo (31:17):
It's hard to cancel established humor because it's
like they've alreadydemonstrated that they have
value, they've demonstrated thataudiences will pay for that and
watch that, and so to all ofthe sudden change your mind and
say, hey, now this isn't okay,there's something wrong there
(31:40):
yeah, well, it's like you gottathink about the numbers too,
like thinking about this, is it?
Matt (31:49):
I mean, this is kind of there are two sides to this one
like one, um, that likesomething is actually just
crossed the line and somethingthat is just way beyond the pill
.
Which.
How do you even measure that?
Like you know, like said one ofthose jokes like that should,
that's pretty, that's prettydark, right, yeah, but that's a
(32:10):
good question.
Angelo (32:10):
Should there be a line?
Matt (32:12):
yeah, um.
And on the other hand, you have, say, you have people who watch
the show and they're like, oh,this is way offensive, this you
know.
Say they're just tuning in forlike the first time.
They'd never seen south parkbefore.
They're like this, oh, this isway offensive.
Say they're just tuning in forthe first time and they've never
seen South Park before.
They're like this should becanceled.
And then you have swaths ofpeople who have been following
(32:33):
the show for many, many, manyyears who are like well, we like
it.
We're going to keep on watching.
There was a generational thingthere.
Angelo (32:41):
I think because there was a whole generation that was
like you can't joke about thistype of stuff, or this is too
profane, like you can't showyour butt on TV or you can't you
know, like some of this stuffis just really ugly, it's not
even funny.
And the next generation waslike, oh, I get to watch this in
secret and my parents will hateit, but they won't let me watch
(33:03):
it.
And now there's like a, there'slike a, a novelty to it, yeah,
and a pushing of the boundaryand there's mischief there
mischief.
There you go, there you go I.
Chris (33:17):
I want to get back on this topic of like, collective
humor.
Okay, because I have a good Ithink.
You know I'm a practicingchristian.
I don't profess to be a goodchristian, necessarily all the
time, for sure, but I practice.
I have a good sense of humorabout jesus.
I have a lot of jokes aboutjesus.
I don't have any jokes aboutodin, okay I, because I'm not
(33:42):
familiar with Odin like as adeity or you know his lore.
That much right, read AmericanGods, watched the Northmen, good
movie, good book.
But what if humor is like ademonstration of like, how well
you know something right?
Familiarity breeds contempt,but it might also breed a good
(34:04):
sense of humor about the topic.
Matt (34:06):
Yeah Well, speaking of that too, you know, being
someone who loves Norse stuffand all things Norse- that's why
I was looking at you, man Dudethanks for the segue, man.
If you read through the poeticedda like there are different
parts of the edda, differentpoems, right.
Some of that stuff, I wasshocked is actually pretty
(34:29):
hilarious, like like some of thesome of this yeah, oh, my god.
Um, some of the stories and thisis, these are like ancient
sacred texts in norse culture,right, you're going through and
there's one story where Loki istrying to get into this party
with all the gods and they'reall in there, and then you know
(34:51):
this other god.
He's like hey, you can't go inthere.
He's like I was not invited,I'm going in there and he just
proceeds to talk shit to everysingle one of them.
He's just drinking and talkingshit about every single one of
them.
He's just drinking and talkingshit about every single one of
these other gods, right, andthere are some who are trying to
, who are trying to like keepthe peace, to be cool, odin
included, right, and he justlike he returns that the
(35:13):
kindness and niceness with, likeyou did this, and that he's
just shreds them, and then they,uh, they end up they end up
just uh, giving him hiscomeuppance and like they um
well, they tie him up and theymake snake venom drip onto him
or something pretty, uh, prettypainful.
It's just like son of a bitch.
(35:35):
I broke in here and trying to.
I'm just reading this.
I'm like these are like sacredtexts like this is hilarious.
Funny because there'sdefinitely a lot of similar
stuff in like the bible.
Angelo (35:48):
Right, you have a, you have some senses of yeah,
profanity.
Jesus tells a joke, jesus tellsin the gospels.
Chris (35:56):
So he's got all these people gathered around him and
he's like what you came to see?
Do you see a guy like shaking areader, like this in the wind?
No, you came to see.
Did you see a guy shaking areed like this in the wind?
No, you came to see, like aprophet, a holy man.
You want holiness?
I can give that to you.
I am the way, the truth and thelife.
Matt (36:13):
That's funny.
I thought of another onerecently too.
It's like you're thinking aboutwas it the Sermon on the Mount?
Was it the Sermon on the Mountwith the loaves and the fishes?
Chris (36:29):
So the Sermon on the.
Mount is its own thing.
The loaves and the fishes are adifferent story, but he
probably said the Sermon on the.
Matt (36:35):
Mount before he did the loaves.
Angelo (36:37):
I think he did do the loaves and fishes right after
the Sermon on the Mount, if Iremember correctly, so I'm not
far off right.
Chris (36:42):
I think You're not far off.
You're accurate.
Matt (36:46):
So they had the loaves and the fishes, but then the masses
then did have a sweet tooth andJesus said check this out.
And he sneezed Jesus sneezesReese's pieces what?
And then the masses did proceedto pick up the pieces from the
(37:06):
ground.
Come on, man come on I don'tknow that one's that one's all
right, it's a little out therefor me there's something about
saying or thinking Jesus sneezesReese's Pieces.
Angelo (37:29):
Even the cadence to the sentence Jesus sneezes, reese's
Pieces, jesus.
Chris (37:35):
I completely missed that.
How did I miss that?
That was super funny, that waspretty cool.
You got him, you got him.
Angelo (37:46):
I heard a really funny joke from a Catholic priest.
He was because Catholics talkabout the Virgin Mary as being
sinless right.
Chris (37:54):
Yeah.
Angelo (37:55):
So he was talking about that story in the Bible where
Jesus is rescuing the prostitutefrom being stoned and he says
everyone who, whoever has notsinned, should cast the first
stone.
And then a huge rock comes andsmacks the prostitute in the
face and then he says Mother,you stay out of it.
(38:15):
Oh, no, damn, damn, would yousay, a boulder just a huge rock.
He just said a huge rock littlevirgin mary hey, she's got
(38:46):
levitation powers man she musthave telekinesis levitate that
damn rock I guess, trying to getback into there was a question
that you asked earlier.
I wanted to expand on that andI can't remember what it was.
(39:09):
Maybe it had something to dowith the purpose of humor.
Chris (39:14):
The telos of humor.
Angelo (39:16):
The telos of humor.
We kind of started getting intoit, Like every emotion has a,
and especially a release fromthe mundane.
Chris (39:24):
I'm sorry, go ahead.
Angelo (39:26):
Yeah, but I guess we kind of touched on that we were
talking about.
There is a release frommundanity, but there's also a
novelty and exploration andthere's a bit of mischief in
there.
So I guess that could sum it up.
Chris (39:39):
There are all kinds of elements in humor.
You probably can't pin anysingle one on every joke or any
combination thereof, right?
Angelo (39:48):
Right.
Matt (39:51):
Oh, think about the big bang, about, like the
nothingness, and then the, youknow, the combustion, the
explosiveness, right, thedrumming up of the energy, the
drumming up of the energy, thedrumming up of aliveness, right,
it's like think aboutexperiencing a mini big bang in
(40:12):
the moment.
You know, it's like that momentof awe that you're like, oh you
know it takes you by surprise,and then you know, that energy
has to go somewhere.
Angelo (40:21):
It might as well turn into kinetic energy.
Chris (40:24):
You know, I think in that , in doing that right, in having
this awe moment, there is likea physical sensation where
you're like, wow, like, youlaugh a little, like, wow, like,
(40:47):
how could something like that Iguess it's the king and the
jester, right this airy,beautiful thing that defies my
reasoning.
My logic is somehow tied alsoto this earth and my own sin,
sinfulness right the, the evilthings that I've done well like
(41:07):
there's a connection there and Idon't know was there humor
before the fall?
Matt (41:13):
hold up, hold up, connect, hold it real quick like part of
the, the sovereign to go intothe.
You know, the leader and thesub, the sovereign and the
jester.
The sovereign, primarily interms of the collective, brings
blessing in different ways.
So it's like I'm going to makeit so that there is this joyful
(41:34):
experience, that there is thiscollective joy, this humor.
I'm going to bring thatblessing to the masses.
I'm going to bring thatblessing not just to myself but
to people around me, right andso then that makes the situation
better okay, well, yes, sure,sure, I'm kind of trying to
(41:57):
think what is is the blessing,the humor in this sense, like
for the jester the humor is theblessing it's the inverting.
Like the sovereign.
Like the sovereign is the onewith the blessing capacity.
And then the jester is the onewho is carrying it out right,
the one who's carrying it outthrough the humor okay well, uh,
(42:21):
that's not.
Chris (42:23):
that conflicts with my understanding of those
archetypes, but you've certainlydelved a lot more deeper into
it than I have.
Okay, I would call, like thesovereign has right, like a
blessing power that calls you upfrom the earth and brings you
into wisdom and holiness andgeneration of prosperity uh, and
(42:46):
the jester does the same thing,inverted.
He brings you down, but in thatsense you can I, I like to think
of it like my yeah, kind oflike that, like the jester like
hey, we're down here on theearth, I can still bring you up,
but we're gonna laugh about itwell, maybe because the jester
is almost an inverter aninverter if the world is already
(43:09):
inverted.
He's a positive force I loveagainst the negative.
Angelo (43:13):
I think that's great he's a flipping of the flipping
perfect, so in dark times whenthere's tyranny, you look to the
comedians to to shine a lightand laugh at the tyranny I would
love to.
Chris (43:29):
I would love to pose a christian metaphor about that
exact idea.
Right, christ, the sinless one,who was the messiah, who
reconciled the earth and theheavens and all of us together,
was crucified right, right sideup.
But peter, who sinned, whodenied christ and his salvation
three times but was redeemed,was crucified, asked to be
(43:54):
crucified upside down.
There is still redemption inthat crucifixion.
Right, peter died a holy man,he's a saint now, but he died
inverted on a cross.
So there's still right, kingjester.
Matt (44:12):
Yeah, but still part of the royal court, that's still.
It's interesting when you thinkof the symbols, right, like we
have the right side up cross andthen we have the upside down
cross and we have ourunderstanding of what those
things mean, right.
Angelo (44:27):
Right.
Matt (44:27):
It's similar to like the pentagram with the right side up
versus.
You know, as we know, likeupside down is usually straight
up satanic right Well you noticehow Satan is an inverter.
Angelo (44:40):
Satan himself is like oh , anytime you want to show
something as satanic, you invertthings yeah, it's like oh, take
a cross, turn it upside down.
Now it's evil, not necessarilyin the case of Saint Peter, you
can try right that's an attemptto invert the good and the
pentagram.
As I understand it is likesomething to do with more Wiccan
(45:05):
, like it's, it's like wiccan itrepresents humanity.
Matt (45:10):
Sometimes it's well, it's, it's a very, it's a complex
symbol, but yeah, tied in withlike magic and nature, and then,
yeah, the upside down is reallylike, yeah, like dark, occult,
I think I think that's prettyagreed upon is that the upside
(45:31):
down pentagram is like the islike the dark, occult side.
Chris (45:35):
So I've only done a little bit of research on this,
but right there's.
Um, oh, who was that guy on themidnight gospel?
Damien eccles.
I Practicing witchcraft user.
Angelo (45:46):
Oh, okay.
Chris (45:46):
He talks about the banishing ritual of the
pentagram, which is you have analtar right with the pinnacle
symbol right side up circlearound it, the whole deal.
Not that, as a Christian, thatI'm necessarily recommending
these things, but it's just howit is.
Now I've read parts of thelevain satanic bible and right,
(46:07):
the, the sigil of baphomet isthe upside down of that pinnacle
.
There's two on top representthe horns of the devil and the
three on the bottom representthe holy trinity being subjected
to the devil's horns that areon top.
Angelo (46:23):
Along with.
Chris (46:23):
Hebrew Leviathan, written in Hebrew, around the circle oh
, interesting.
Matt (46:30):
Oh, and you know, there's also this symbol too.
Angelo (46:34):
It's devil horns right.
Matt (46:36):
Well, this, this is an interesting symbol because this
is like the metal hornspopularized by the inevitable
ronnie james dio, and where hegot it from was I think it was
his grandmother used to do thissign.
This is like a warding againstevil.
This is like a calling to thelight.
Angelo (46:54):
This is oh really, you know I was watching the show
true blood recently.
Matt (46:58):
My, my wife and I've been really getting into this and
there's this character who is,you know, the antithesis to
vampires, right?
She does this whenever shewants to like ward vampires and
they come near her, she puts herhorn, her finger horns, up like
this and then like this, likethis is to bring, make them
(47:18):
subdued.
And then Spider-Man.
Angelo (47:23):
No, but that's I hadn't.
Matt (47:25):
Oh, my God, I hadn't even thought of that.
I hadn't even thought of that.
Angelo (47:30):
So in sign language I don't see if there is a
connection In sign language.
Chris (47:34):
this is I love you.
Okay, and then.
So Spider-Man does thisActually in the comics, doctor
Strange does this to cast hisspells.
Angelo (47:43):
Oh yeah, oh.
So there's a magic element.
Chris (47:46):
Right To that, to this, to this or this, but in.
Angelo (47:49):
Satanism I love you is I love me, okay, Well, levain.
Satanism is all about selfWorship.
Chris (47:58):
Worship, yes, and then there's this.
I don't know if that's actuallyHappy llama, sad llama.
Angelo (48:04):
Itty bitty baby llama.
Chris (48:05):
Crazy llama, super llama, big fat, mama llama, you forgot
.
Matt (48:13):
Llama llama ding dong.
Chris (48:15):
Darn it.
Angelo (48:18):
One other thing I wanted to touch on was tickling.
Chris (48:22):
Okay.
Angelo (48:23):
Laughing because of a physical sensation.
It's strange because there mustbe a novelty to it, because you
can't tickle yourself.
Chris (48:34):
You're sensitive about yeah, you're sensitive about
your body, right?
So if someone else is touchingyou, you're like, oh no, no,
that's sacred, stop that.
Matt (48:52):
No, no, body right.
So if someone else is touching,you're like, oh no, no, that's
sacred, stop that.
But you laugh about it, it'snot painful, it is well.
And going to the archetypes too, it's like the warrior is the
warrior and the lover usuallyboth have to do with the body,
and it's like the warrior is theforthgoing one, the, the action
and the charging, but the, thenthe lover, is the being,
withness and the and thepleasure and the connection.
Angelo (49:08):
It's like that's a very loverly thing, right where it's
like oh, you're in my space, butit's fun, you know I guess,
yeah, there's a crossing, aboundary there, but it's not in
a negative sense, it's in anovel sense, because you don't
know.
It's almost like, I mean, youknow rationally, but your body
doesn't know what to expect.
(49:30):
Maybe.
Chris (49:31):
Well, sure, but if I'm on the battlefield and my opponent
starts tickling me, that's justgoing to piss me off.
Angelo (49:37):
That's not going to make me laugh.
Well, I don't know, maybe.
I mean I've never been in thatsituation, but I can't imagine
tickle fight pillow fight.
We're gonna drop grenades of noyeah because tickling is
(49:59):
definitely seen as a positivething, right.
Chris (50:02):
You tickle people that you love Not to the tickly.
Angelo (50:06):
Well, it can be, though, right.
You tickle people you love, youtickle kids?
Oh sure, I mean your kids.
Matt (50:11):
Not any kid.
Chris (50:13):
Just walk up to kids.
Matt (50:17):
Hey kids.
Angelo (50:18):
It's the tickle monster.
Matt (50:21):
And that was how Josiah got kicked out of the playground
but is there a sense ofbreaking mundanity there?
Chris (50:32):
maybe there's a sense of, there's a sense of novelty
there's a sense of novelty there.
Angelo (50:39):
right, can't tickle myself.
Has to be foreign, unexpected,unexpected, and there's a
mischief there.
Matt (50:47):
yeah, yeah it's like, ah, I'm gonna get ya.
Angelo (50:51):
Yeah, yeah, so I think we're pretty close to like
figuring humor out.
Maybe I like to think so.
Oh, okay, figuring humor out.
Chris (50:58):
Maybe I like to think so oh okay.
See, if I had my notebook Icould be writing all this stuff
down and I'd come up with adefinition of humor.
But I didn't do that today.
Angelo (51:11):
You're going to have to do it on the fly, oh.
Matt (51:14):
God, you got to improv, chris.
Angelo (51:17):
I believe, in you.
Chris (51:19):
Do you have faith in me?
Matt (51:20):
Yes, I give my faith to you, thank you.
Chris (51:25):
That doesn't help me come up with a definition.
Come on.
Angelo (51:28):
Yes, it does okay, I'll give you a chance and if you're
still stuck, I'll think about itokay, let's you want to mull it
over?
Matt (51:43):
Gotta, let him mull on it a little bit.
Angelo (51:45):
Yeah, I gotta chew on it .
Chris (51:46):
I have to chew on an hour worth of information I just
processed.
Angelo (51:52):
Well, at least you laughed while doing it.
Chris (51:55):
Yeah, sure did, sure did.
Humor is the psychologicalelement of unannounced
mischievous, something like that.
If I had a notebook it would bea lot better.
Angelo (52:13):
Is it an element or humor is the capacity to release
energy from the mundane, andhumor is humor is the functional
capacity of release from themundane and mischievous
(52:37):
perception of reality.
Chris (52:40):
Mischievous discovery.
Mischievous discovery ofreality.
Oh, that's cool.
Angelo (52:47):
Okay, we'll run with it.
Okay, alright, honestly, Ithink, on that note, we did
pretty good, unless you guyshave any more thoughts, no, it's
been real Alright.
Well, thank you all for joiningus.
To whoever made it this far, wereally appreciate you sticking
(53:08):
around and listening to us jokeabout humor.
Please like, share, subscribe,do what you can to support the
podcast if you like us, and tunein next time to see more telos
initiative.
Thank you, thank you.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.