Here’s a conversation between a man and his doctor:
“For a man of 60, you’re in remarkable shape.
Did I say I was 60? I’m 83.
My goodness, your father must have lived a long time.
Did I say my father was dead? He’s 104.
Good grief, man, how long did your grandfather live?
Did I say my grandfather was dead? He’s 124 and he’s getting married next month.
Why on earth would a 124-year-old man want to get married?
Did I say he wanted to get married?”
Absurdist humor of this sort is, admittedly, not to everyone’s taste. But you must admit it has its virtues. By holding up longevity to gentle ridicule this dialogue makes us smile at the comedic elements in growing older. Whoever the author of this playful piece drawn from the Internet, he or she deserves credit for helping us see some laughable aspects of aging.
Humor is one of the redeeming virtues of later life. Recognizing that the human condition, our being at one and the same time both rational and animal, puts us in a basically peculiar situation – – this amounts to wisdom. The ability to laugh at oneself must be accounted a precious gift.
“Humor,” writes Kathleen Fischer, “reveals that there is a ‘more’ in the midst of human life. Humor reminds us that there is a larger perspective on life than our own.”
Fischer goes further: “Humor recognizes that limitations and failures are not final and unredeemable tragedies.”
In his new book, A Map to the End of Time, philosophy teacher Ronald Manheimer recounts a series of dialogues that he has led, over a period of several years, with men and women much older than himself. Their talks have centered on the teaching of such thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, Kierkegaard, John Stuart Mill, and Martin Buber. The chapter I liked best was the one focused on humor.
Manheimer asks the question: “Is it strength of character or some impulse of self-preservation to laugh in the face of adversity?” He thinks that, whatever the reason, as we grow older we come to appreciate humor differently.
If with age, as this thinker suggests, “we are slow-moving targets for adversity,” then we need humor more. After all, the dangers posed by the world around us can become greater threats the older we get. Is there a better response to the sudden blow that changes everything for us? And what else besides humor responds so well to the experience of slowly falling apart?
The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard saw humor as an accommodation to incompleteness. In his eyes it is a response to our recognition that we lack something. Thus it is also a form of humility and self-acceptance.
In the difficult and frustrating situations of daily life – – the bank informing you that the check you wrote has bounced and you’ve been assessed a hefty fine, or your car that you thought was parked in the right place has been towed to the ends of the city, or tripping over a rug, falling and badly bruising your leg – – given the choice between laughing and crying, don’t we sometimes find that laughing makes more sense?
When you come right down to it, humor is a manifestation of wisdom. It shows that we have not altogether lost perspective. We can see ourselves, if not exactly as others see us, still not as the measure of all things.
Perhaps we can even identify with the comic hero and laughing at him or her, laugh at ourselves. Again Manheimer: “In comedy the heroic individual, drawing from a bag of tricks, painlessly triumphs over humiliation, failure and degradation. The comic hero’s flaws – foolishness, impulsiveness, or naïveté – – can become redeeming qualities that turn the tide.”
This description reminds me of Charlie Chaplin and his misadventures on film. This great comic makes us laugh at life’s situations made difficult by other people’s actions or our own bumbling. The Little Tramp, with his formal attire, hat and cane and flat shoes, is able to help us recognize the absurd aspects of life and to draw forth from us a mirthful response.
This kind of help can move us toward a growth in wisdom that may come with later life. Manheimer gives expression to the ideal: “We learn to accept many of the contraries in life, make our peace with time. We can look at ourselves and laugh at what formerly troubled us and made us anxious. We accept our humanity.”
So reading again the dialogue with which this column began, one can find in it, not the funniest of situations to be sure, but a rapid-fire, irreverent, and ironic exchange that exposes at least some of the absurdity that marks the human enterprise.
What about it? Did the 124-year-old guy want to get married?
Richard Griffin