Laughter is Greater Than Outrage

Life's A Laughing Matter (Things That Matter #12)

I’ve been doing a lot of self-reflection lately and, when I strive to articulate the principles live by, I get to about a dozen. I’ve written about several of them: Burning Bridges When Needed, Being Loyal, and Dealing With Anger Before Sunset. I’ll share more in due course, but in this post I want to share another, which, like the three just mentioned, is also tattooed on the back of my frontal lobe. It’s simple: laughter is greater than outrage. Or, as I often write it: Laughter > Outrage.

It only took me about 45 years, five degrees, a marriage, several kids, multiple moves, and numerous vocational changes to realize it. I’m not saying I never get mad. I do. Ask my kids. I’m saying I want to choose to laugh, not spiral. I want to laugh so hard I get abs again. Okay, the “again” there is a farce; I’ve never had abs. I have had ibs.

I want to be clear here: I’m not trying to pass off some “just lighten up, bro” philosophy. This isn’t “everything’s a joke, so let’s all eat pie and never talk about hard things” notion. That isn’t that at all. I’m not saying life isn’t serious. But I am saying even serious things deserve to be laughed at.

In my view, if there’s one thing we don’t need more of, it’s collective outrage fueled by selective memory and algorithmic moral superiority. Take politics for example. These days, it seems like everyone is always one headline away from becoming a full-time social media activist. Their little platform is made with all the trappings of rage and no awareness of irony or satire. I mean, all the people who were yelling “the Pope is evil” a week ago are now outraged that Trump made a joke about becoming the Pope. I watched the clip. He was laughing. He literally said he’s sure they’ll find a good one. Then he posted a meme of himself in Pope gear and people acted like he threw holy water on one of the Catholic Church’s scandals. Oy vey!

Some of those same folks are just fine to laugh at the Catholic Church year-round like it’s part of their workout plan. But when he makes a joke, suddenly it’s a sacred institution again. Again: outrage is selective. But comedy? Comedy is universal. Everybody gets made fun of, or at least deserves to, and that’s what makes it beautiful. Nobody is above being the butt of a joke or being satirized. The thing is: we’ve spent a few generations becoming so fragile, we just can’t take a joke.

I tell jokes about church. I tell jokes about politics. I tell jokes about parenting and pastoring and puberty and everything in between. Because it’s all ridiculous. You know what’s not helpful? Screaming about it on Facebook with a thread full of people using words like “problematic” and “nuanced” and “I’m shaking right now.” People with PhDs in Bible & Religion calling me a bigot, fascist, racist, homophobe, Nazi, authoritarian, non-Christian, etc., because I don’t agree with their political stance. I have zero respect for such people. Zero. None. It’s just not helpful.

But you know what is helpful? Laughing at the absurdity of yourself, your life, your own tribe. Your own family. Your wife’s daily planner that looks like a dare from Satan. In the past few days, I’ve had a tire blow out, had to get not one but two tow trucks, paid over 500 bucks for the privilege of a pair of tires, a balance, rotation, and alignment. I’ve dealt with school discipline, mortgage lenders, choir concerts, comedy sets, student grievances, surprise parties, and my inbox yelling at me like it’s mad I exist. Life comes at us fast and from so many different angles. If we don’t laugh, we’ll get mad, go mad, and stay mad.

So when people look at me and say something like, “I can’t believe you! You’re laughing about that?” Yeah, I am. Because the alternative is what? Yell into the abyss? I’ve tried that. The abyss doesn’t answer. It’s like a wife with a grudge playing the silent treatment game. Yell at others, like the idiots I mentioned above? No thanks! Meanwhile, laughter makes the pain bounce. Laughter reminds me that joy is still an option even when my email or pocketbook says otherwise. Laughter is how I keep my head when the wheels literally come off.

And I get it. Some people hate that. They see joy and think, “How dare you be okay right now?! How dare you be so strong?! How dare you have strength when I’m struggling?!” They see someone making jokes during a crisis and think it’s a coping mechanism. Well, newsflash: it is! Coping is the whole point. I’m not trying to invalidate anyone’s pain. I’m just trying to make it a little more survivable. Let me say that again:

I’m not trying to invalidate anyone’s pain. I’m just trying to make it a little more survivable.

You don’t have to choose laughter, but if you’re around me, at some point, that’s what you’re gonna get from me. Because the older I get, the more I realize I don’t want to be remembered as the guy who always knew what to say. That bores the crap out of my kids and I’m sure everyone else, too. I want to be remembered as the guy who made the room exhale when it thought it couldn’t even breathe.

The fact is, most people live like outrage is a virtue. It’s not. It’s an addiction. I’ve even heard preachers talk about holy anger/holy outrage or righteous indignation. They try to stick sanctified adjectives in front of words like anger to attempt to justify it. That’s dumb, too. Anger really gets us nowhere. I have read many books on anger and, at the end of it all, that’s the conclusion I’ve come to: it’s pointless. With one exception: like all emotions, its sole function is to point us to God. That is the chief end of all emotions, though: to point us to God. To get us to call on him, to cry out to him, to surrender our feelings to him.

And like most addictions, anger just drains your soul, empties your joy, and ruins your group texts. When you’re angry all the time you start to feel like if you’re not mad about something, you’re not paying attention. I’ve known my fair share of people for whom if something’s not wrong then nothing’s right. That’s a terrible way to live and, with those people, I definitely burn bridges. I’d much rather laugh at how stupid everything is, crack jokes, make fun, satirize, and get through it. That’s not a way around dealing with it. I think, in fact, that it’s the best way of dealing with it without losing your mind.

So yeah, I’m gonna laugh. I’m gonna laugh at the broken dryer and the broken world and the broken people yelling at each other about broken politicians and political agendas. I’m gonna laugh when my dog has an explosion from both ends, when people hate on me, when stress decides it’s going to try to do me in. And if that bothers you, take it up with yourself. Or, take it up with God, who made donkeys talk, turned water into wine, and invented marriage.

I’ll say it again for the people in the back: laughter is greater than outrage. Laughter > Outrage. God has given us laughter for healing and disarming and building bridges, even when we’ve already burned a few. And if all it does is make you snort in public once or twice a week, well, that’s still better than refreshing your social feed and setting your blood pressure on fire. So here’s to more jokes, more laughter, and fewer downward spirals into outrage. You can be mad if you want. But sitting in that madness will ruin you. It’s better just to laugh.