Scientific studies on humor have concluded that we laugh because of a primitive evolutionary throwback to a former time.
A more intriguing explanation might be that we laugh at the absurdity of things. Someone falls down in a crowd; a breathless silence follows. Nervous titters can be heard as the embarrassed stumbler picks himself up off the floor. Why? People aren’t “supposed” to fall down.
Says who? Says our innate sense of the way things are supposed to be.
We laugh at accents different from our own. We laugh at childrens’ endearingly inaccurate imitations of our words; spaghetti comes out as “busghetti”. We laugh at the shortcomings of our government. Good grief, we even laugh at death!
Why? It’s not supposed to be like this and we recognize it at the deepest level. Laughter erupts spontaneously when we are confronted with the absurd. For something altogether wonderful and truly perfect is the norm. Some people call him “God”. We are always falling short of it, and so we laugh.
