I was a standup comedian in the 1980s and was occasionally asked why “my people” were so funny, and it’s odd because there are a lot of things that are funny about us, but not the real answer to this one. We had to be, for thousands of years, or we died. If we had humorless dumb ones (and we do, but not as many, again, because of what happened to them, as well as quite a number of our best) they didn’t do as well.

I was also a clinical psychologist for a few years, and could say more on this, but some other time.

Jewish humor, gay humor, autistic humor… they’re all more similar than they are different. You learn, from atypical experience, to see everything one degree off and you have a story that people will listen to and eventually they might even like you. You see things three degrees off and you shut up so no one else knows. You get six degrees off and even you don’t know, but everyone else does.

This is why the male oriented dating communities call it “goofmaxxing” or “jester maxing” to get good at comedy for the purposes of attracting others.

The need to become funny for literal survival is among the worst of all humiliation rituals that most of us will be forced to do. I want people to be funny because they like being funny - not because they will literally not breed or be killed without it!

As they say, tragedy (or alternatively, adversity) plus time equals comedy.

I think a lot about Victor Frankl's description of the use of dark comedy while in concentration camps