Humor

The secret source of humor itself is not joy, but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven. Mark Twain

What is humorous about sorrow? Every function in the human organism has its opposite. Imagine that each of us find many stimuli to be sorrow producing. It follows that other compensatory emotions may proceed from other stimuli. So in a sense the stimuli produce sorrow and in turn the sorrow becomes a stimuli that evokes humor which in turn is a stimulus. So it may simply be compensatory mechanisms no different from the synaptic releases that regulate blood pressure or respiration. The sophistication of the nuances of mind and thought create new thought from the constant arranging and rearranging of pieces of memory. This gives no solace and reduces the experience of joy/sorrow simply a dance of molecules between synapses.

On a conscious level, our humor in the face of sorrow may simply be our recognition that we are in fact the cause of our suffering. Despite our best efforts we have a hard time getting things right. Have you ever made a mess of something and realized simultaneously that you knew better? No matter how smart we seem to be, no matter how much planning or fail-safe prevention we put into our works, we still screw things up! So often we are the source of our pain and, in a moment of genius, we realize our shortcomings and are amused. Our ability to spot these shortcomings in others is much more acute.