Being funny is an interesting phenomenon. Why are people funny? Why does it matter? Sure it makes you feel good when someone is joking around with you, but so do back rubs and compliments. Why do we like it when people are funny?
One theory is that humor is an indicator of intelligence, and we like intelligent people because we can learn from them and rely on them. And unlike other examples of intelligence, humor is really hard to fake.
For example, I could memorize a lot of facts about marsupial animals. If I were to rattle those facts off at you, you might think that I’m pretty smart. But at the same time you’d know that maybe I just memorized them. Memorization is easy, so we don’t necessarily think people who know some facts are intelligent.
But humor requires taking unrelated concepts, relating them, and putting them into a familiar context. That’s really hard to do, especially in real time. If someone recited a bunch of copied jokes you wouldn’t think he’s intelligent, but if he made some funny off-the-cuff comments you would.
Physique is another good example. It’s hard to get into great shape. I can tell you that I’m really serious about my health, but if I’m overweight or rail-thin and look like I don’t know what the inside of a gym looks like, you might not believe me.
In most cases, the proof is in the pudding. It doesn’t really matter if you believe that I’m smart or in shape because I’m the one to whom those factors matter. But what if I’m asking you to trust me? Or hire me? How can you know if I’m representing myself honestly?
One way is to look for evidence that I’ve done hard things in that field.
For example, a friend of mine recently paid me a large debt that was rather ambiguous. By the letter of the law, I don’t think he really owed it to me. Sprit… maybe. Either way, I had totally forgotten about it and would have never thought to collect. But he brought it up and paid me.
This is a friend I already completely trust, but even if that wasn’t the case, that one action would cement my trust in him. It’s a really hard thing to pay a large debt you know the other person isn’t expecting.
A girl I’m coaching is applying for a job. She told me that she’s identified weaknesses that the company has and is going to do the work to fix them and present that with her application. How does that look to the company? It’s one thing to believe her if she says she’ll do a good job, but it’s a whole lot easier if she’s already done a good job.
I’m sort of writing this post just as an excuse to once again tell you to do hard things. Everyone looks for the easy way, but the hard way is where the action is. Besides helping you grow and challenging yourself, it provides reference experiences for people to know that you are who you say you are.
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The bees are from my friend’s beehive. I dressed up in the crazy beekeeper suit and helped/watch her take care of them. Very interesting!
I’m only going to be in the US for around 2 more days until at least November. Crazy!
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