September 20, 2006
Humor and Its Effect on Stress and Wellness
Joseph Cardone
Humorist and Humor Therapist
Minutes of the Second Meeting of the 65th Year
Around ninety-five members attended the second meeting of the 65th year which President Giordmaine opened smartly at 10.15 a.m. in the Friend Center. He paid tribute to the Arrangements Committee for all their work and announced a meeting of the Program Committee to follow ours. John Marks led us through the sung invocation, followed by Charles West who gave very lucid and entertaining minutes on last week’s meeting, with its talk on the pluses and minuses of evolution.
Wesley McCaughan introduced his guest Marc Kleber and the Membership chairman, Charles Stennard presented Tom Huntington with a certificate of emeritus status.
Gordon Spencer then introduced his long-standing friend, the speaker Joseph Cardone. Mr Cardone’s talk, entitled “Humour and its Effect on Stress and Wellness” might have been launched in the scholarly mode implied by the title but, perhaps to general relief, opened with a succession of short jokes and one-line verbal twists of a titillating and chuckle-provoking nature. His approach not only entertained us but in its effect on a relaxed audience only illustrated his main, and more serious theme, that humour is remedial and healthy. The determination to illustrate his theme was reinforced by the at-first disconcerting practice of roaming randomly far and wide in the hall, effectively confronting more somnolent members toward the back so that everyone sat up and took notice of the talk.
As a former teacher, I appreciated his recognition of humour as an effective immobilizer of antipathy and aggression amongst his pupils – using wit to make a bond with his audience and disarm hostility. Such a procedure implicitly recognizes the sense of proportion in the mind of the hearer; it has been said that a sense of humour requires a sense of proportion as humour is the recognition of the disproportionate. Of course, if the listener has no sense of proportion, and hence no sense of humour, the technique would not work.
The jokey style was not successful in masking the inner serious nature of his convictions, and he did, indeed, admit he had serious purposes in mind. His commitment to such purposes gradually became obvious – humour makes us kinder to others; it equalizes people of opposing views, balancing the positive and the negative much in the way genuine humility earns the kind of sympathetic hearing that arrogant aggressiveness never does, something public officials could well take to heart. Mr Cardone also pinpointed something I, for one, had not recognized – that quips amuse because they end with a line totally unexpected.
In the course of his discussion of two keywords – attitude and choice – he listed seven examples of humour. In underscoring the need to “be positive”, I could not help feeling that some discussion of the difference between “being positive” and what some of us regard as the harmful heresies of Norman Vincent Peale’s school of positive thinking might have been helpful. Perhaps the need to be positive is why he indicated, in response to a question, that he did not like black humour. Nor was there any discussion of why we sometimes react to humour with an outraged feeling that being funny was inappropriate. Perhaps there are kinds of humour which deny his contention that humour and negative thoughts cannot co-exist. Does not Molière’s Tartuffe abound with humour and negative thoughts?
Whatever doubts one may have had on particular points he raised, he was certainly right in insisting that laughter is healthy (even contributing to what is meant by that disgusting word “wellness”). It gives a different perspective, is honest in recognizing the absurdity in life, and the need for fun to be truly serious. Did the existentialists have a sense of humour, or was it always black humour?
The speaker must have developed a powerful self-discipline but he did not once boast of it. For me to realize that he had the guts to persevere in the way of humour despite those unavoidable times when a joke must have fallen flat was quite sobering. We can only admit we are beneficiaries of that deep sympathy for his fellow humans which has led him to meet the damaged and the dying, as he does.
After a number of questions, we adjourned at 11:30 AM.
Respectfully submitted,
John Frederick
Wesley McCaughan introduced his guest Marc Kleber and the Membership chairman, Charles Stennard presented Tom Huntington with a certificate of emeritus status.
Gordon Spencer then introduced his long-standing friend, the speaker Joseph Cardone. Mr Cardone’s talk, entitled “Humour and its Effect on Stress and Wellness” might have been launched in the scholarly mode implied by the title but, perhaps to general relief, opened with a succession of short jokes and one-line verbal twists of a titillating and chuckle-provoking nature. His approach not only entertained us but in its effect on a relaxed audience only illustrated his main, and more serious theme, that humour is remedial and healthy. The determination to illustrate his theme was reinforced by the at-first disconcerting practice of roaming randomly far and wide in the hall, effectively confronting more somnolent members toward the back so that everyone sat up and took notice of the talk.
As a former teacher, I appreciated his recognition of humour as an effective immobilizer of antipathy and aggression amongst his pupils – using wit to make a bond with his audience and disarm hostility. Such a procedure implicitly recognizes the sense of proportion in the mind of the hearer; it has been said that a sense of humour requires a sense of proportion as humour is the recognition of the disproportionate. Of course, if the listener has no sense of proportion, and hence no sense of humour, the technique would not work.
The jokey style was not successful in masking the inner serious nature of his convictions, and he did, indeed, admit he had serious purposes in mind. His commitment to such purposes gradually became obvious – humour makes us kinder to others; it equalizes people of opposing views, balancing the positive and the negative much in the way genuine humility earns the kind of sympathetic hearing that arrogant aggressiveness never does, something public officials could well take to heart. Mr Cardone also pinpointed something I, for one, had not recognized – that quips amuse because they end with a line totally unexpected.
In the course of his discussion of two keywords – attitude and choice – he listed seven examples of humour. In underscoring the need to “be positive”, I could not help feeling that some discussion of the difference between “being positive” and what some of us regard as the harmful heresies of Norman Vincent Peale’s school of positive thinking might have been helpful. Perhaps the need to be positive is why he indicated, in response to a question, that he did not like black humour. Nor was there any discussion of why we sometimes react to humour with an outraged feeling that being funny was inappropriate. Perhaps there are kinds of humour which deny his contention that humour and negative thoughts cannot co-exist. Does not Molière’s Tartuffe abound with humour and negative thoughts?
Whatever doubts one may have had on particular points he raised, he was certainly right in insisting that laughter is healthy (even contributing to what is meant by that disgusting word “wellness”). It gives a different perspective, is honest in recognizing the absurdity in life, and the need for fun to be truly serious. Did the existentialists have a sense of humour, or was it always black humour?
The speaker must have developed a powerful self-discipline but he did not once boast of it. For me to realize that he had the guts to persevere in the way of humour despite those unavoidable times when a joke must have fallen flat was quite sobering. We can only admit we are beneficiaries of that deep sympathy for his fellow humans which has led him to meet the damaged and the dying, as he does.
After a number of questions, we adjourned at 11:30 AM.
Respectfully submitted,
John Frederick