Telos Initiative
Telos is a term used by the philosopher Aristotle to refer to the final cause or purpose of something. Our telos is to seek truth and cultivate wisdom using dialogue and rational discussion. The podcast will cover a wide range of topics in various genres and we hope to grow with our audience toward our ultimate purpose in this mystifying existence.
Telos Initiative
Episode 13 - Humor
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.
Hello everyone, welcome to the Telos Initiative podcast. I'm Angelo Cole,
Chris:I'm Chris Vigil.
Matt:And I'm Matt Maes.
Angelo:Today we wanted to talk about humor. Now, humor is an interesting topic because we don't really know exactly where it comes from. We don't know why we laugh at things. To have a sense of humor seems to be more of a subjective thing in nature, so it's hard to tell if there's like an objective sense in which humor is real. But I figured I'd prompt you guys 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 it all in the mind?
Chris:is humor any more or less real than tragedy?
Angelo:Depends on what you mean by tragedy, right? If you mean tragedy in the performative sense, like a Shakespearean tragedy, then I think that is akin to what humor is. But if you mean tragedy as in a tragedy, like an actual event that happens to you, like the death of someone in the family that's objectively real.
Chris:If I do remember my lessons from Robot Chicken, comedy is just tragedy plus time, sure. Well, there's something to be said there.
Angelo:So is comedy really just a unique response to tragedy and suffering in our lives? Is that what you could sum up humor as I think it's.
Matt:it can be a function of that. Like, let's look at what happens when something is funny, right, there's something about that that you can understand. They have to. You know, you have to understand the joke Right In order to get it, or it's going to go over your head. But there's also something that is unexpected about it. Like if you, if you knew what's coming at the end, or sometimes, even if you don't know what's coming at the end, like oh my God, I know the punchlines, this one'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 this joke before, but someone is telling it to a new group of people and you're like just waiting for the kind of raucous laughter to happen. And you still know like, oh, this is a great joke. It's like familiar, but delivered in a novel way, it seems.
Chris:Okay, which?
Matt:is a really interesting combination of something that you can conceive of, and I know you're just like itching to get a Yep.
Angelo:I mean, yeah, I think there is something to novelty about humor right.
Chris:Well, sure, there is something novel about humor, like if I tell a joke to a new group of people, that's going to get me going absolutely also. At the same time, I just have this joke that I tell to myself all the time. It always brings a smile to my face, even though I know exactly what the punchline is. I'm also telling it to myself, like 99% of the time, if I've got a grocery cart or I'm on a steering wheel in my car and just pretending like I'm driving a motorcycle, like broom, broom, broom broom, Dust pan, dust pan, broom, broom.
Chris:And if I want to go really fast, I go vacuum, vacuum and it's stupid, but it makes me smile me.
Angelo:Yeah, that's pretty stupid but that's the thing I have.
Chris:There's no such thing as intelligent humor. I mean, you can well, I disagree, I make jokes about like science or full likerooted philosophical concepts, but at the end of the day it's just a look at something chaotic, I guess, right.
Angelo:I don't know. Well, let's maybe think about different reasons why we laugh. Right, so you have slapstick humor. You have people getting kicked in the balls Stepping on a rake.
Angelo:Stepping on a rake, getting hurt or even just doing an unexpected physical move, that gets a laugh out of you. Why does that get a laugh? Probably something about the unexpected nature of it. Maybe there's a little suffering in there mixed in and then there's profanity, right, people love to laugh at something because generally it's so ugly to look at that it's almost like a flipping. It's almost like an easier way to look at the dark side of humanity, right?
Angelo:Yes, when you make a joke about something really dark, dark humor and profanity. It gets a laugh because maybe there's a discomfort there. It gets a laugh because maybe there'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 light to it.
Chris:Something about that awakens the spirit, right, absolutely, or something's like so dark you just have to laugh at it. I mean, I think we've heard that all the time growing up right, life is just so absurd you have to laugh about it.
Angelo:Sometimes there's also there's also jokes where you're kind of talking about something familiar, but it puts a little twist on the end. You know, like a joke where you you start one way, you think it's going a certain way, and then all of a sudden it's completely different than what you thought it would be. And I can't think of a good one off the top of my head, but I'm sure there's some mitch headberg I got no, I, I got one yesterday.
Matt:I was, uh, I was. This just randomly came to me and I was laughing about it, especially like, uh, you know, my two parents like super christian, right, and I'm like what if the like god came out with a Bible number two and he's just like we're telling him like, oh my God, have you guys heard? The sequel is here. It turns out it's twice as thick as the original. If you thought that you, if you got a lot out of the first one, I mean that sucker's dead.
Angelo:You got a lot out of the first one.
Matt:I mean that's suckers. Sink your teeth in that thing right it's just I was, I was just. I had fits of laughter like driving down just thinking about this. Like they made another one and like I love the bible I love you know, I, I hold a lot of value in the bible.
Angelo:I can also look at that and be like what a hilarious thought, like god just dropped bible number two I mean, and let's think about what's funny about that right part of it is the bible is considered something sacred, right yeah and you're almost like making fun of it. There's's a profanity there and a twist there. It's also unexpected, right? You wouldn't expect anything more about the Bible to be written.
Matt:Yeah.
Angelo:I almost feel like explaining it totally kills the joke.
Matt:Well, it does.
Angelo:Because you want the novelty to be there. So explaining it a little more is like oh my God, shut up.
Matt:No, no, no, I appreciate that.
Angelo:I still find it hilarious. Well, I'm glad I didn't kill it for you. Let's talk about killing a joke too. When you repeat a joke over, and, over, and over and over, it dies. Why?
Chris:because there's no more novelty to it yep, unless it's a really stupid joke like mine and you're just like oh life is hilarious, it just depends just depends on your type of humor.
Angelo:I guess some people can hear the same joke over and over well, even just now.
Chris:I told you the joke a few minutes ago and then I changed a perspective on it. You posited a philosophical thing. Like you know, dead jokes are dead, whatever. And then I was like, oh, let's actually bring up that past topic again, but look at it from a different angle.
Angelo: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 even doing anything dirty or profane, it's has nothing to do with, like, the dark side of humanity. All it is is like taking two concepts and kind of mashing them together and creating something clever that people are like oh my gosh, yeah it's, it's like we're creating different associations.
Matt:There's like there's an aliveness to it too where you're able to make new neural pathways about a concept that you might have thought you're familiar with and you're like, oh my God, this is presented to me in this fun, interesting, novel way that lights up all these different parts of my brain Like I never would have thought of that before, unless it was presented to me in this way.
Angelo:Absolutely so. There's a sense of discovery in humor. Know, absolutely so. There's a a sense of discovery in humor, like when you really find something funny. Maybe part of that is there's a joy in discovering something that you didn't connect in your mind and your body's rewarding you for that yeah, oh, and that's, that's it.
Matt: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's like there's a shaking up inside you, you know so your body is having a reaction like a joyful you know, joyful shaking up reaction.
Chris: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:You ever had this happen, where you laugh so hard at something that you kind of squint in one eye a little bit.
Angelo:Yeah, there's an air of mischievousness to that. That's probably true.
Chris: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 chaos agent of chaos. If you will, yes, yeah, oh, where have we heard that? It's probably batman yeah it's the a Batman movie. It is the Batman movie, it's definitely Okay so yeah, this is interesting how about a mischief, can we go?
Angelo:How about dry?
Chris:humor.
Angelo:Oh, give me an example. Well, probably how I just addressed, you.
Matt:I was like it's in the Batman movie.
Chris: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 deadpan movie.
Angelo:Yeah, because it's almost like it was so obvious. But it's funny to watch you squirm.
Chris:It's fun to pretend like you don't know something like oh yeah, I didn't know that before.
Angelo:It's pretty obvious, yeah like Matt Wals type of humor deadpan dry humor.
Matt:Good old deadpan love it. Have you guys ever seen uh parks and recreation before? I've seen a little bit of that okay, it's like um ron swanson for the, for people who haven't seen or aren't familiar, that dude is the king of deadpan. Right, he's like this, like serious, like man's man, he's got like a mustache, he just knows how to do everything and he goes to Home Depot. This guy works a rolls up and he goes like hey, can I help with anything? He just goes. I know more than you do, I think my favorite Ron.
Chris:Swanson moment is when he you know he has that young secretary, april right, he's like your only job is to make sure I don't have any meetings.
Chris:And he's like a politician like he needs to have like a whole bunch of meetings all the time and she's like I won't let you down. She keeps all of the people forever. That's hilarious. Yeah, she does, but I mean, that's I don't know. You have to metacognizate about that situation. It's weird metacognizating about humor. You have to like laugh at it first and then think why did I laugh? Why? And it layers upon itself.
Angelo:I mean, some people do, some people don't think about it at all, they're just like ha and they move on yeah, but we're here to metacognizate sir, so we're gonna go. We have one job. That's what they're all saying you had one job.
Matt:Guys, you have one job well, it's the.
Chris:It's the telos initiative. Right, what's the word? Our one job is to discover the telos of humor.
Angelo:That's good that's good, let's let's actually dive into that. So the telos being the purpose of humor. So I like to think every emotion has some sense of purpose. Right, anger is there because it it gives you adrenaline and it gives you the capacity to face something dangerous or something that you, uh, protect your family, or something like that protect your, your priorities right Protect your community.
Angelo: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 things that are dangerous. If you're afraid of something that isn't dangerous, you have misplaced fear, sadness. I think that's probably a release right. You build up a lot of tension psychologically and you need to release it somehow and something with the tears and having a good cry. You always feel better after a really good cry, right? Yeah sure there's a tension release there.
Chris:So what is humor? Not only that, though, so you said something that anger. Well, so fear helps you stay away from the danger. I would argue that anger helps you face a danger, and it doesn't have to necessarily be physical, like a tiger, or I mean, it could be like a spiritual or mental danger too. Like I'm really putting myself at risk with my manager if I do this. But I dang it like I can't take any more bs at work, right, yeah well, we even call it fight or flight response.
Chris:That's a part of your brain dedicated to anger versus fear so as time passes on and we experience more and more tragedies, especially us in our mid-30s. Now, looking back on my life, I think we need humor to look at that tragedy tragedy plus time and say this can't be all bad. I need a method of looking at life in a way that brings a smile to my face a method of looking at life in a way that brings a smile to my face.
Angelo: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 recent evolutionary trait, or if all animals have to laugh for some reason and it's built into just about every creature.
Chris:It takes at least some modicum right of rationality to have humor, doesn't it?
Angelo:Well, when I think of an animal that probably has a sense of humor, I think of a chimpanzee.
Matt:I was just going to say monkeys Like you see monkeys straight up like. Right.
Angelo:And it's funny thinking about it because if you think of humans as evolved monkeys, we look so silly. When we laugh, we're just like those chimpanzees.
Matt:Like what are you doing If I was an?
Angelo:alien and I didn't have humor whatsoever. If I was like Spock or something, I'd be like these creatures are so weird.
Matt:What are these irrational creatures doing?
Angelo:They have to freak out and have this bodily reaction every time they discover something.
Matt: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.
Matt:The magician just really the faculty of, you know, imagining and exploring and and conceiving, right, but there is the trickster element that's in there, right, and this, you know, this often happens within that part 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 darker sides too, and, and you know, maybe that's a way of like going into the, into the darkness again, like the mischief and being able to say like what's fun about this or like what's enjoyable about going into these.
Angelo:Yeah, there's an exploratory element to it. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Chris:Just to briefly recap for our audience um, like a magician, like a good magician is like a spiritual leader, but the trickster is like an intellectual manipulator.
Angelo:Right, I'm just, yeah, I also think, um, there's something to the notion of the trickster being the inversion of the sovereign. So if you think of a king, the king is very serious and the king takes his role seriously. He's about order and he's got a crown pointing up and all the little arrows on the crown are like aimed higher, and the king is about what's sacred, right, yeah, and you invert that and the king becomes the jester and he's got a crown too, but his crown points in different directions and he's got a scepter, but it's a set. It's almost like he's making fun of the King and he's taking the seriousness that we have and saying we can laugh about it sometimes. Yeah, and you even see that in um, in our rituals. Like we have holidays dedicated to inversion, right, like uh, something like uh. Like we have holidays dedicated to inversion, right, like something like Mardi Gras.
Chris:It's like a celebration.
Angelo:It's a carnival. Carnival meaning meat, meaning the body. It's a celebration of the lower and you have to take the time to it's revels.
Chris:It's a party. There's something to the time, to it's revels.
Angelo:It's a party there's something to the Sabbath there, right, the seventh day is a day of rest. You can't always be stuck in monotony. You have to flip things around sometimes and twist them and laugh at them in order to in order to have a healthy society.
Matt:So my wife and I go to this thing called Carnival Sensual. It's a quarterly event. It's a burlesque show.
Angelo:Oh, wow.
Matt:And so we go to church. We're like very, you know, spirituality is a very deep, important part of our lives genuinely, and we also kind of like to get down at these events for sure yeah so it's creative, it's sexy, it's it's funny, it's irreverent in all all kinds of different ways.
Matt:Right and um, we've been to like six of these that they happen in denver and they'll always have a different theme around them. Right, and if I were to describe the type of people that go to these shows or participate in these shows, it's usually people who have been on the fringes or people who are like you know, you might think of as like weird or, um, some like outcasts or something like that. It's very counterculture, right, and it's a way to release that, it's a way to to really kind of let loose a lot of ways right maybe there's a release to laughter and humor in the similar way that sadness.
Angelo:Sadness is like a response to tragedy, humor is a response to like novelty, but there's still a form of release there I'm going to maintain that, uh, it's still a reaction to tragedy okay, perhaps not not always.
Chris:I'm not saying that all humor is based on extreme levels of trauma like a little broom broom joke that's.
Angelo:There's nothing traumatic about that, it's just dumb but there's, but there's discovery there, right even in a modicum I, I can't, I can't watch comedy movies all the time.
Chris:Right, there's a time and a space for comedy. Um, I can't just constantly put it in. I think you're right in that it's a release from the mundane.
Angelo:Okay, there you go, so there's, oh, there's a. So it's totally about novelty right, got you guys.
Angelo:It's totally about novelty how you got me with that, because there's a repetition to your cycle, like if you're working six days a week, that week gets exhausting and you need a break from it and you need some time to celebrate, to go to the bar, to kind of do something for yourself. You need a refresh and then you go into that week more productive, Totally. If you're working out, your muscles get tired, you get fatigue. You need a rest day in order to recover your muscles get tired, you get fatigue. You need a rest day in order to recover your muscles. And throughout the day, if you just kept going and going, your mind gets tired. You need to sleep after a certain point, and even sleep is very similar to humor in that it's almost mysterious what the origins of sleep are. We almost don't know exactly why we have to sleep, but I think it has something to do with breaking mundanity yeah, and going to go into them the mind to.
Matt:It's like thinking and take a lot of energy, you know. So if we're thinking and thinking and thinking all the time and then after a while you get diminishing returns, on thinking Like you've been thinking. So if you end up getting anxious and paranoid and all that type of stuff, I would say that you're like running on your tank with regards to the amount of energy that you have Just like muscle fatigue, right Exactly.
Matt:And it's like humor, rejuvenates and drums up energy in the body. We're thinking about why movement doesn't necessarily just take energy, but a lot of times it gives you energy. Right, you feel more energized by these movements, but this is the shaking in one place. It's like a really efficient way of being able to move. Sitting in one place and having that joyful release and that dopamine and all these different chemicals going through your body right and and your brain. You're in a better mood. You know you're in a better state than you were before.
Angelo:It's a it's a refresh.
Matt:Oh yeah.
Angelo: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 flood is like a baptism of the world. Right, there's a renewal there, a going down and coming back up refreshed and reborn. Yes, um so in in such a powerful sense, humor is a descent, not necessarily in a negative way, but sometimes you're descending into the chaos, into the now, into into the. I think there is a sense in like be here now and enjoy the moment, in humor versus like aiming forward, aiming forward, aiming forward.
Angelo:You get tired of the aim after a while and you have to come back to like hey, take a break, enjoy it, you're here, you're alive yeah, talk gratitude.
Matt:Maybe there's a gratitude. Lover right, talking about the lover archetype, right the being the being here now and and pleasure and rejuvenation in the present tense absolutely, yeah, have a little sensuality, a little sensibility, that's right the senses are all there, it's body.
Chris:Body is is always associated with the lower right, so as you descend, you you move closer into the body and then, as you ascend, it becomes more so I I can't really physically feel my rationality right, but if I tell a good joke that puts my rationality on its head, that causes me to feel it in a sense right, In a sick sense.
Matt:Well, it's interesting. Well, it's well, it's interesting, well, like, let's say.
Matt:Let's say like you're a comedian on stage and you have like a bunch of people and you're having a a collective humor experience right to say this this is a fun place to go, like you are, like you're the one kind of driving and you're the one telling the jokes, you're the one, but you know, but everyone is vicariously feeling that way through you too, you know, similar to how we would watch a character in a movie or a video game, or playing as that character, and you, you know, are able to identify with that figure. Right, so it's like you can be the actor quote on stage, and then everyone is also coming along with you. So then they're riding on your going into those humorous places, right? Yes, so an individual experience can turn into a collective experience. Oh, wow, right, into a collective experience.
Angelo:Oh wow, that just lit off a little light bulb in my head because, thinking about the collective experience of humor, a lot of humor is bonding. Sometimes you're bonding at the expense of someone else. Some people can gather together and make fun of someone, and there's like a bonding in making humor, but sometimes it's negative in the sense that they're bonding over. You know, making a skateboard out of somebody, yeah, or it doesn't necessarily have to be, though. You can bond in humor about anything, making fun of anything right. You could even bond over self-deprecation.
Angelo:So if I make fun of myself, it's a way for other people to relate to me and they laugh, and then you know there's self-deprecating comedians.
Chris:In fact, doing that some sort of self-deprecation takes the power away from anyone who might be making fun of you. They're like oh, I have this power over you. I can point and I can laugh. You're like no, I can point and laugh at myself. I can point and I can laugh. They're like, no, I can point and laugh at myself. That's right, jerk, that's right.
Matt:No one can hurt me more than me.
Angelo:See Conan O'Brien right All the time oh yeah, so there's definitely a communal binding thing associated with humor, because you never really I mean people laugh alone, I guess, but really it's usually experienced as like a communal thing, I laugh by myself all the time.
Matt: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 very important place to go to. It's like going back to it being a collective experience and the people that you are including in the humor experience coming along with you, right, like they're able to laugh and they're able to go to those places. Then it's like, you know, we all can laugh at this person. You know they're. But but this is also interesting where, when we're living in this time of, like, you know, all this, this is canceled, this is canceled, all this type of stuff. And I've wondered, like, why shows like South Park or Family Guy seem to get a pass. It's like I never hear about that. You know, is it because they have too vast of an audience? Or maybe is it because they've made fun of all these different groups of people indiscriminately, consciously?
Angelo:I think there is something about that.
Matt:Very intelligently right. But that's quite mysterious to me, like why they seem to be able to kind of walk that path.
Angelo:It's funny. It's funny there's a border there, right, and it's like these are things that are okay to make fun of and you step outside of that border and it becomes offensive. So there's some things that you shouldn't joke about. But you're right, some people get a pass for some reason. So there's some sense of morality there, right, where we allow people to make jokes about certain things, as long as it meets certain conditions and there's definitely a. It probably depends on the culture and it depends on, like, where sensitivities are. It could even depend on, you know, different communities, like community. One community might laugh at certain jokes. I'm sure stand-up comedians know this really well. Certain people will laugh at like really ugly, profane jokes about other groups of people or about themselves, and other groups will be like that's not funny, that's not even cool, because there's a moral boundary there.
Chris:So I think, super subjective, I think, maybe, think, maybe, maybe the archetype 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 the book. Um, I'll mention two. I think in the earlier seasons of Family Guy some old lady was dead and Peter takes her out of the coffin and dances with her to disco music, for whatever reason. In South Park the main character, cartman, kills Scott Tenorman's parents and then grinds them into a food and makes him eat his parents. Horrible, very dark, very irreverent. We haven't canceled that show yet. It's been on for like 20 million seasons.
Angelo:It's hard to cancel established humor because it's like they've already demonstrated that they have value, they've demonstrated that audiences will pay for that and watch that, and so to all of the sudden change your mind and say, hey, now this isn't okay, there's something wrong there yeah, well, it's like you gotta think about the numbers too, like thinking about this, is it?
Matt:I mean, this is kind of there are two sides to this one like one, um, that like something is actually just crossed the line and something that is just way beyond the pill. Which. How do you even measure that? Like you know, like said one of those jokes like that should, that's pretty, that's pretty dark, right, yeah, but that's a good question.
Angelo:Should there be a line?
Matt: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 for like the first time. They'd never seen south park before. They're like this, oh, this is way offensive. Say they're just tuning in for the first time and they've never seen South Park before. They're like this should be canceled. And then you have swaths of people who have been following the show for many, many, many years who are like well, we like it.
Matt:We're going to keep on watching. There was a generational thing there.
Angelo:I think because there was a whole generation that was like you can't joke about this type of stuff, or this is too profane, like you can't show your butt on TV or you can't you know, like some of this stuff is just really ugly, it's not even funny. And the next generation was like, oh, I get to watch this in secret and my parents will hate it, but they won't let me watch it. And now there's like a, there's like a, a novelty to it, yeah, and a pushing of the boundary and there's mischief there mischief.
Angelo:There you go, there you go I.
Chris:I want to get back on this topic of like, collective humor. Okay, because I have a good I think. You know I'm a practicing christian. I don't profess to be a good christian, necessarily all the time, for sure, but I practice. I have a good sense of humor about jesus. I have a lot of jokes about jesus. I don't have any jokes about odin, okay I, because I'm not familiar with Odin like as a deity or you know his lore. That much right, read American Gods, watched the Northmen, good movie, good book. But what if humor is like a demonstration of like, how well you know something right? Familiarity breeds contempt, but it might also breed a good sense of humor about the topic.
Matt:Yeah Well, speaking of that too, you know, being someone who loves Norse stuff and all things Norse- that's why I was looking at you, man Dude thanks for the segue, man. If you read through the poetic edda like there are different parts of the edda, different poems, right. Some of that stuff, I was shocked is actually pretty hilarious, like like some of the some of this yeah, oh, my god.
Matt:Um, some of the stories and this is, these are like ancient sacred texts in norse culture, right, you're going through and there's one story where Loki is trying to get into this party with all the gods and they're all in there, and then you know this other god. He's like hey, you can't go in there. He's like I was not invited, I'm going in there and he just proceeds to talk shit to every single one of them. He's just drinking and talking shit about every single one of them. He's just drinking and talking shit about every single one of these other gods, right, and there are some who are trying to, who are trying to like keep the peace, to be cool, odin included, right, and he just like he returns that the kindness and niceness with, like you did this, and that he's just shreds them, and then they, uh, they end up they end up just uh, giving him his comeuppance and like they um well, they tie him up and they make snake venom drip onto him or something pretty, uh, pretty painful.
Matt:It's just like son of a bitch. I broke in here and trying to. I'm just reading this. I'm like these are like sacred texts like this is hilarious. Funny because there's definitely a lot of similar stuff in like the bible.
Angelo:Right, you have a, you have some senses of yeah, profanity. Jesus tells a joke, jesus tells in the gospels.
Chris: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 a reader, like this in the wind? No, you came to see. Did you see a guy shaking a reed like this in the wind? No, you came to see, like a prophet, a holy man. You want holiness? I can give that to you. I am the way, the truth and the life.
Matt:That's funny. I thought of another one recently too. It's like you're thinking about was it the Sermon on the Mount? Was it the Sermon on the Mount with the loaves and the fishes?
Chris:So the Sermon on the. Mount is its own thing. The loaves and the fishes are a different story, but he probably said the Sermon on the.
Matt:Mount before he did the loaves.
Angelo:I think he did do the loaves and fishes right after the Sermon on the Mount, if I remember correctly, so I'm not far off right.
Chris:I think You're not far off. You're accurate.
Matt:So they had the loaves and the fishes, but then the masses then did have a sweet tooth and Jesus said check this out. And he sneezed Jesus sneezes Reese's pieces what? And then the masses did proceed to pick up the pieces from the ground. Come on, man come on I don't know that one's that one's all right, it's a little out there for me there's something about saying or thinking Jesus sneezes Reese's Pieces.
Angelo:Even the cadence to the sentence Jesus sneezes, reese's Pieces, jesus.
Chris:I completely missed that. How did I miss that? That was super funny, that was pretty cool. You got him, you got him.
Angelo:I heard a really funny joke from a Catholic priest. He was because Catholics talk about the Virgin Mary as being sinless right.
Chris:Yeah.
Angelo:So he was talking about that story in the Bible where Jesus is rescuing the prostitute from being stoned and he says everyone who, whoever has not sinned, should cast the first stone. And then a huge rock comes and smacks the prostitute in the face and then he says Mother, you stay out of it. Oh, no, damn, damn, would you say, a boulder just a huge rock.
Angelo:He just said a huge rock little virgin mary hey, she's got levitation powers man she must have telekinesis levitate that damn rock I guess, trying to get back into there was a question that you asked earlier. I wanted to expand on that and I can't remember what it was. Maybe it had something to do with the purpose of humor.
Chris:The telos of humor.
Angelo:The telos of humor. We kind of started getting into it, Like every emotion has a, and especially a release from the mundane.
Chris:I'm sorry, go ahead.
Angelo:Yeah, but I guess we kind of touched on that we were talking about. There is a release from mundanity, but there's also a novelty and exploration and there's a bit of mischief in there. So I guess that could sum it up.
Chris:There are all kinds of elements in humor. You probably can't pin any single one on every joke or any combination thereof, right?
Angelo:Right.
Matt:Oh, think about the big bang, about, like the nothingness, and then the, you know, the combustion, the explosiveness, right, the drumming up of the energy, the drumming up of the energy, the drumming up of aliveness, right, it's like think about experiencing a mini big bang in the moment. You know, it's like that moment of awe that you're like, oh you know it takes you by surprise, and then you know, that energy has to go somewhere.
Angelo:It might as well turn into kinetic energy.
Chris:You know, I think in that, in doing that right, in having this awe moment, there is like a physical sensation where you're like, wow, like, you laugh a little, like, wow, like, how could something like that I guess it's the king and the jester, right this airy, beautiful thing that defies my reasoning. My logic is somehow tied also to this earth and my own sin, sinfulness right the, the evil things that I've done well like there's a connection there and I don't know was there humor before the fall?
Matt:hold up, hold up, connect, hold it real quick like part of the, the sovereign to go into the. You know, the leader and the sub, the sovereign and the jester. The sovereign, primarily in terms of the collective, brings blessing in different ways. So it's like I'm going to make it so that there is this joyful experience, that there is this collective joy, this humor. I'm going to bring that blessing to the masses. I'm going to bring that blessing not just to myself but to people around me, right and so then that makes the situation better okay, well, yes, sure, sure, I'm kind of trying to think what is is the blessing, the humor in this sense, like for the jester the humor is the blessing it's the inverting.
Matt:Like the sovereign. Like the sovereign is the one with the blessing capacity. And then the jester is the one who is carrying it out right, the one who's carrying it out through the humor okay well, uh, that's not.
Chris:that conflicts with my understanding of those archetypes, but you've certainly delved a lot more deeper into it than I have. Okay, I would call, like the sovereign has right, like a blessing power that calls you up from the earth and brings you into wisdom and holiness and generation of prosperity uh, and the jester does the same thing, inverted.
Chris:He brings you down, but in that sense you can I, I like to think of it like my yeah, kind of like that, like the jester like hey, we're down here on the earth, I can still bring you up, but we're gonna laugh about it well, maybe because the jester is almost an inverter an inverter if the world is already inverted. He's a positive force I love against the negative.
Angelo:I think that's great he's a flipping of the flipping perfect, so in dark times when there's tyranny, you look to the comedians to to shine a light and laugh at the tyranny I would love to.
Chris: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 the heavens and all of us together, was crucified right, right side up. But peter, who sinned, who denied christ and his salvation three times but was redeemed, was crucified, asked to be crucified upside down. There is still redemption in that crucifixion. Right, peter died a holy man, he's a saint now, but he died inverted on a cross. So there's still right, king jester.
Matt:Yeah, but still part of the royal court, that's still. It's interesting when you think of the symbols, right, like we have the right side up cross and then we have the upside down cross and we have our understanding of what those things mean, right.
Angelo:Right.
Matt:It's similar to like the pentagram with the right side up versus. You know, as we know, like upside down is usually straight up satanic right Well you notice how Satan is an inverter.
Angelo:Satan himself is like oh, anytime you want to show something as satanic, you invert things yeah, it's like oh, take a cross, turn it upside down. Now it's evil, not necessarily in the case of Saint Peter, you can try right that's an attempt to invert the good and the pentagram. As I understand it is like something to do with more Wiccan, like it's, it's like wiccan it represents humanity.
Matt:Sometimes it's well, it's, it's a very, it's a complex symbol, but yeah, tied in with like magic and nature, and then, yeah, the upside down is really like, yeah, like dark, occult, I think I think that's pretty agreed upon is that the upside down pentagram is like the is like the dark, occult side.
Chris:So I've only done a little bit of research on this, but right there's. Um, oh, who was that guy on the midnight gospel? Damien eccles. I Practicing witchcraft user.
Angelo:Oh, okay.
Chris:He talks about the banishing ritual of the pentagram, which is you have an altar right with the pinnacle symbol right side up circle around it, the whole deal. Not that, as a Christian, that I'm necessarily recommending these things, but it's just how it is. Now I've read parts of the levain satanic bible and right, the, the sigil of baphomet is the upside down of that pinnacle. There's two on top represent the horns of the devil and the three on the bottom represent the holy trinity being subjected to the devil's horns that are on top.
Angelo:Along with.
Chris:Hebrew Leviathan, written in Hebrew, around the circle oh, interesting.
Matt:Oh, and you know, there's also this symbol too.
Angelo:It's devil horns right.
Matt:Well, this, this is an interesting symbol because this is like the metal horns popularized by the inevitable ronnie james dio, and where he got it from was I think it was his grandmother used to do this sign. This is like a warding against evil. This is like a calling to the light.
Angelo:This is oh really, you know I was watching the show true blood recently.
Matt: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 she wants to like ward vampires and they come near her, she puts her horn, her finger horns, up like this and then like this, like this is to bring, make them subdued. And then Spider-Man.
Angelo:No, but that's I hadn't.
Matt:Oh, my God, I hadn't even thought of that. I hadn't even thought of that.
Angelo:So in sign language I don't see if there is a connection In sign language.
Chris:this is I love you. Okay, and then. So Spider-Man does this Actually in the comics, doctor Strange does this to cast his spells.
Angelo:Oh yeah, oh. So there's a magic element.
Chris:Right To that, to this, to this or this, but in.
Angelo:Satanism I love you is I love me, okay, Well, levain. Satanism is all about self Worship.
Chris:Worship, yes, and then there's this. I don't know if that's actually Happy llama, sad llama.
Angelo:Itty bitty baby llama.
Chris:Crazy llama, super llama, big fat, mama llama, you forgot.
Matt:Llama llama ding dong.
Chris:Darn it.
Angelo:One other thing I wanted to touch on was tickling.
Chris:Okay.
Angelo:Laughing because of a physical sensation. It's strange because there must be a novelty to it, because you can't tickle yourself.
Chris:You're sensitive about yeah, you're sensitive about your body, right? So if someone else is touching you, you're like, oh no, no, that's sacred, stop that.
Matt: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's not painful, it is well. And going to the archetypes too, it's like the warrior is the warrior and the lover usually both have to do with the body, and it's like the warrior is the forthgoing one, the, the action and the charging, but the, then the lover, is the being, withness and the and the pleasure and the connection.
Angelo:It's like that's a very loverly thing, right where it's like oh, you're in my space, but it's fun, you know I guess, yeah, there's a crossing, a boundary there, but it's not in a negative sense, it's in a novel sense, because you don't know. It's almost like, I mean, you know rationally, but your body doesn't know what to expect. Maybe.
Chris:Well, sure, but if I'm on the battlefield and my opponent starts tickling me, that's just going to piss me off.
Angelo:That's not going to make me laugh. Well, I don't know, maybe. I mean I've never been in that situation, but I can't imagine tickle fight pillow fight. We're gonna drop grenades of no yeah because tickling is definitely seen as a positive thing, right.
Chris:You tickle people that you love Not to the tickly.
Angelo:Well, it can be, though, right. You tickle people you love, you tickle kids? Oh sure, I mean your kids.
Matt:Not any kid.
Chris:Just walk up to kids.
Matt:Hey kids.
Angelo:It's the tickle monster.
Matt:And that was how Josiah got kicked out of the playground but is there a sense of breaking mundanity there?
Chris:maybe there's a sense of, there's a sense of novelty there's a sense of novelty there.
Angelo:right, can't tickle myself. Has to be foreign, unexpected, unexpected, and there's a mischief there.
Matt:yeah, yeah it's like, ah, I'm gonna get ya.
Angelo: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:Maybe I like to think so oh okay. See, if I had my notebook I could be writing all this stuff down and I'd come up with a definition of humor. But I didn't do that today.
Angelo:You're going to have to do it on the fly, oh.
Matt:God, you got to improv, chris.
Angelo:I believe, in you.
Chris:Do you have faith in me?
Matt:Yes, I give my faith to you, thank you.
Chris:That doesn't help me come up with a definition. Come on.
Angelo:Yes, it does okay, I'll give you a chance and if you're still stuck, I'll think about it okay, let's you want to mull it over?
Matt:Gotta, let him mull on it a little bit.
Angelo:Yeah, I gotta chew on it.
Chris:I have to chew on an hour worth of information I just processed.
Angelo:Well, at least you laughed while doing it.
Chris:Yeah, sure did, sure did. Humor is the psychological element of unannounced mischievous, something like that. If I had a notebook it would be a lot better.
Angelo:Is it an element or humor is the capacity to release energy from the mundane, and humor is humor is the functional capacity of release from the mundane and mischievous perception of reality.
Chris:Mischievous discovery. Mischievous discovery of reality. Oh, that's cool.
Angelo:Okay, we'll run with it. Okay, alright, honestly, I think, on that note, we did pretty good, unless you guys have any more thoughts, no, it's been real Alright. Well, thank you all for joining us. To whoever made it this far, we really appreciate you sticking around and listening to us joke about humor. Please like, share, subscribe, do what you can to support the podcast if you like us, and tune in next time to see more telos initiative. Thank you, thank you.
