ellenspictures

Category: Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins

  • If you can’t laugh…you may want to figure that out. Having a sense of humor may save you. I’m serious.

    If you can’t laugh…you may want to figure that out. Having a sense of humor may save you. I’m serious.

    Watching a show on Neanderthals recently gave me some insight into how likely, whenever we, the human inhabitants of planet Earth, originated (the debate rages on about when and how that was and how far back…), there must have been also the evolution of humor at some point.

    Discoveries say that as long as 16 million years back, laughter was traced back in forms such as responses to tickling in ancestors of Great Apes and Humans.

    Can you imagine? Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the act of spontaneous laughter was evidenced as a part of social behavior as long as everything was fine – relatively – when humans were not under siege or starving… Quite possibly, there might have been times when Thor was wandering along and saw something or thought about something that made him go “heh!”. Chuckling.

    But every day was probably life and death scenarios all day long – maybe all night long, too. Somebody had to stand watch. Poor guy. And likely, it probably was a guy because they probably thought that women needed to be around to have more babies and keep the cave cleaned up. Mom was probably good and irritated at times with this, and possibly joked around with other moms about this or other things… when there weren’t periods of starvation or attacks by animals that happened while everyone was asleep…

    Life was about avoiding early death. It still is.

    That was the whole thing – just like now, but more extreme in the brutal sense – real gore, blood and guts every day if you didn’t keep control of your surroundings. I wonder how anyone got any sleep. It was really next level rough living.

    Big ass animals, for starters. No technology. Only the actions that were devised in the slow lead up to evolving communication and organization of things in their world.

    Imagined Neanderthal – Neanderthal mother with child depicted in the Anthropos Pavilion of the Moravian Museum

    The whole socioeconomic start-up. Imagine how this went and it evolved from having enough food to go around – how to troubleshoot people getting sick or wounded – how to know if an enemy was nearby and how to take enemies down whether it was one of the wild animal persuasion or the wild human ancestor persuasion from another tribe. It must have been a totally different world, yet in some ways much the same as today.

    ancient lascaux cave paintings of horses
    Hard to say if the horse is a unicorn depiction, with wings or some buddy that just got thrown off and is in the process of landing – definitely looks like some rocks are falling and there’s an escape going on. Photo by Reinhard Bruckner on Pexels.com

    What I observe is that we still have tribes. No matter what anyone tells me, I think that it boils down to some base behaviors where all the filters are off being rather tribal. Just visualize for a moment groups of people getting all whipped up about something in a crowd – a political rally, a sports event, a concert, a significant event like a wedding or during holidays – then think about times when those have gotten out of hand – something goes wrong and somebody either deliberately or spontaneously snaps and changes the lives of many people all at once. That’s the crazy bit. This has been going on for millions of years – likely. Positively.

    So, back to humor. “Humor” has a root of “HUM” as does “human”. Our good friends at Science Friday talk about the etymology of the word humor here. We thank the author if this piece, Johanna Mayer for her work in putting this together. Etymology wise essentially humor is a part of personality and we all benefit if our humors are in balance with everything else. So said the ancient Greeks about the four temperaments or humors.

    The four temperaments – Photo From Wikimedia Commons

    The four temperaments were choleric, sanguine, melancholic, and phlegmatic. That about sums up what must be in balance. I am here to tell you that if I have a back ache or other discomfort, my sense of humor goes down the drain quickly!

    Humor in life is universal and essential.

    apartment cabinet chair contemporary
    Standing on the ceiling. Or not.
    Two girls cutting up.
    Old tech humor

    So many stories about how humor has helped people heal through the worst of times. For me, when I connect with someone with humor – having a similar bandwidth related to humor – it makes all the difference in the world. Having a sense of humor is one of the most important personality traits I can think of. If someone lacks a sense of humor, I struggle with that person after awhile. I can get by for a little while in conversations, but eventually… well, let’s just say, I have to exit. That may sound cruel, but it’s better for everyone. One of my favorite things to do is laugh.

    I grew up in a family that valued laughter, a sense of humor, joking around to the extreme, and were supportive of those of us who developed kind of warped senses of humor. I did. Each side of my family had a different type of sense of humor. I would categorize my Dad’s as more cornball, but sometimes he could come up with some very complex jokes that I couldn’t understand (yet). He liked to act silly. He would do stuff to make us laugh, like driving down the road in the car and faking turning into the other lane. He would do stuff like put his hand out to shake your hand then goose you in the ribs, saying, “Shake…Spear was a great man!!!” as he was getting ready to tickle you or instead of that, he might not let go of your hand and pull on it instead… He told a lot of jokes. He was funny. My cousins sometimes would get it, and sometimes would choose to be humiliated by his jokes! I never understood that.

    But my mom’s side of the family were more into jokes and joking around – playing pranks on one another – maybe more my mom and my uncle to each other and to their parents. Once my mom got me into a prank on my uncle, and we sneaked up to his room and hid in his closet when he was taking a shower. He came into the room with a towel wrapped around his waist and then when we heard him coming, she said “shhhh… wait until he opens the door…”, in a very quiet whisper… Then when he did, we went, “BOOOOO!” and he dropped the towel and yelled! It was so funny! I’ll never forget it!

    My uncle used to call my grandmother and disguise his voice saying he was a gardener looking for work, or someone selling insurance, or some such. She would fall for it every time. My grandfather, however, I don’t remember having a sense of humor that was outstanding in my memory – and likely, he didn’t take part in all these shenanigans. But, these rubbed off on me and formed my crazy sense of humor that at times I’ve had to tame back because it has gotten me into trouble more than once.

    I passed that wacky sense of humor along to my kids, one of which depended on his during very tough times in his life. He is no longer with us today on this planet, but I think of his sense of humor often and the things that made him laugh…

    Rob – Always cutting up…

    Even when I am by myself, I laugh at things, and sometimes I laugh at myself. I believe that being able to laugh at yourself is very important. If you can’t do that, and you’re always in a state of being pissed off, well, how sad that is. You need to rearrange your stuff inside your head in a different way.

    Let’s put it this way – many times, it’s a choice. It’s a matter of self-talking yourself into thinking about things a different way or re-framing to a different context. Like a lot of people, I have to shake myself and say, “Take more joy! Life is short! Don’t let them take your joy away!”

    The poorest of people can have certain positive attitudes believing that they are enriched by things that the wealthiest of people don’t even notice.

    Wealthy people can often become entitled, arrogant, jaded, and suffer a loss of social skills and their sense of humor. I mean, look at the richest men in the world. They are people who probably live quite strange lives with a good bit of isolation. There’s having enough, then there’s having too much and that’s stepping over a line. I’d bet that those people don’t have sense of humor that most other people can relate to.

    I also question people that when they have a good feeling or something good happens they immediately go religious. It’s okay for them, if they want to see things that way, but being in the moment without having to give credit to Jesus or God, well… I’m just not sure about that perspective. I admit that God has a lot of control over everything, but there is a lot about God that we don’t know, by design, and humanizing God is probably not the best idea… But that’s me.

    So I digress…

    All that I can say is that when things get rough, tune in to the humor – levity helps levitate you out of those rough situations when nothing else will… Trust me, I have the experience to know this. Thanks Rob! He was skilled at this…

    What makes you laugh?

    Think about it. Can you make a list of what makes you laugh? I can. I hope that you can, too! Laughter is the best medicine!

  • It’s a lot. Ch Ch Ch Changes. Wish we could talk to the dinosaurs, but that’s not going to happen.

    It’s a lot. Ch Ch Ch Changes. Wish we could talk to the dinosaurs, but that’s not going to happen.

    Life is change. How it differs from the rocks.

    Jefferson Airplane

    Although it appears that rocks don’t change, they actually do. That’s where they got it wrong. Rocks are constantly in a state of change, and depending on the type of rock, some are just being born – chemically, physically, seismically, but one fact remains – everything on this planet from it’s birth is still here and there will not be anything added (significant mass) until the planet vanishes. OK, so the occasional meteor or meteorite crashing into the planet might add a smidge of matter to Earth, it is just a smidge and kind of like when another vehicle rubs on your car and leaves some paint – except maybe a meteor crashing into the earth might have significant planet changing effects, which is a bit different than going for the buffing compound to remove the paint smudge from the red car that bumped your white car and left a smear of red.

    So, I digress.

    Change is constant. Some change is disturbing. Some change is happy. But nonetheless, change of any type shifts our attention, may seem to shift our personal axis, and may also make us change direction entirely. For every change there is some adjustment, no matter how tiny. This breaks, you fix it. You get a minor illness, you either wait and take temporary symptom relief medicine, or you go to the doctor and ask for something else based on the doctor’s exam. You get through whatever it is. If it is something major, then you have to make more major adjustments. Life goes on. Somehow.

    This week, in the space of a week, I have been reminded of lots of changes and the ongoing changes that are taking place continuously. A guy fishing in the park apparently, silently fell over and passed away within a few minutes and some kids found him and called 911 and for hours afterward, we witnessed that police investigate thoroughly even though it appears no foul play was involved. Not just one officer, but several were on the case. Nobody knew what happened until the next day. The rumor mill was going nuts. Always amazing that people without information will engage in conjecture to fill a void.

    One neighbor who prides herself for knowing everything walked by on her way to investigate. I told her she might not want to go that route, and she got all weird about that. “Why?”, she said. I told her that some kids found a guy who was unresponsive and the paramedics came and turns out he died. She said she already knew…wait for it…because her son is a doctor (she tells me this every time she sees me – for years)… even though he lives out of state, somehow her having a doctor son makes her an expert about everything. Sorry, I’m sounding catty, but truthfully, its unhelpful. She said she had to hurry to finish her walk before dark. I told her to have a nice walk. What else could I say?

    I couldn’t help thinking about the guy who didn’t come home for supper. People fish in that area all the time. Some bring families with them. Some fish alone. Most are not from the neighborhood, and possibly not from nearby. It’s a good fishing spot as we have heard. But, when things like this happen it’s sort of a leveling that when it’s your time, it’s your time. One would hope that the guy was loving his fishing and passed away doing what he loved. What could be better except remaining alive to continue doing what you love. It makes everyone else take a pause, however.

    I watch and family members are going through life changes. We go through life changes. Even though, day to day, sometimes it feels like it is the same as it ever was – but it isn’t. We definitely are reminded of changes when we witness major events that affect others, that is for sure.

    The ongoing war in Europe, the massive earthquakes in Turkey and Syria and the surrounding region, the horrid weather in the South Pacific region, many many lives affected in major ways – suddenly, or perhaps not so suddenly – but this points up that something is happening, and we should pay closer attention to the details…

    …Something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear. There’s a man with a gun over there, telling me I’ve got to beware. …Stop children, what’s that sound? Everybody look what’s going down…

    Buffalo Springfield
  • It hasn’t been a cheery week. To look at it another way, loss is a thing, change is a thing, and this is all a part of living.

    It hasn’t been a cheery week. To look at it another way, loss is a thing, change is a thing, and this is all a part of living.

    The transformations marked by events push our thoughts and contemplation into the mode that we, as humans, find difficult to face – our own mortality – loss and grief – and all that comes with. Some if this is anticipating future loss – what that would be like for us – and until we face these, we really don’t know.

    The uncertainty that these changes in our relationships introduce is what we have a difficult time facing. We must deal with the stress, distress, growth cycle as we go through the mental processing to get through the emotions without becoming chronically depressed and bogged down.

    Someone dear passes away suddenly. Someone else dear has a major illness which causes a major change in their lives. The collisions of trying to plan life milestone happy occasions around the changes in an important family relationship impacting everything else. Losing a beloved pet.

    Facing holidays when the normal is not there any more.

    Trying to resolve and adjust to long term events that have caused everything to undergo change. Let’s face it, if we lived under the assumption that the joyous time of winter holidays (or summer if you live down under), would always be the fun observation of traditions long held – we literally are living in some sort of fantasy land.

    What we have done is try to create new experiences. Invite people to come together to celebrate in groups where people either do not know one another or are not all related. Try to bring joy to others who would potentially be going through the holiday alone. It is not that we couldn’t celebrate our holiday all by ourselves, it is that holidays are meant to be shared.

    Family

    As for family changes, those are always ongoing. That is life. Your perception is not their perception. Their priorities are often very different and may not include you in them. As I have learned, being an “only”, without siblings, the distant nature of my relationship to others in my family constellation is often influenced by things that I do not understand. These may be unintended and likely are.

    I reflect on happy times when we were included in family gatherings. Thinking back, I wonder if that was more because my mom or grandmother had the catalytic relationship with everyone else? Once they have departed, those relationship links eroded and have taken effort to maintain. I have tried to form these or re-form them. It just seems that there is no desire and it takes two to make a relationship. These are not just a given.

    It’s not just the holidays

    Communication is difficult. De-prioritized, I think. “I’m zoomed out” “I’m sorry I didn’t respond to you earlier” (earlier was possibly months ago). Short replies designed to cool the conversation. No reply at all. Try calling. No answer. Leave a message. No reply. Some have more manners than others. Some at least say, “I’m busy, I’ll get back to you” Some never do after that. What is the message? You do not rank up on the list of people that they wish to interact with on a regular basis.

    And it seems that there is a circle and my immediate family of three adults and a grandchild are not in it. As I get older, I think, “why do I continue to try?” Nobody cares, and I guess I should abandon caring. It will never be known to me whether I caused something to break, or if it, like lots of things, just deteriorates on its own and fades away.

    The artist and musician, Neil Young, has written so much about this. I think he has studied this since he was quite early in his career. What aging does to individuals and families is all a part of life, but because there are parts of this that are very unpleasant, we move through those until we get through them, at times on tiptoes, sometimes tripping and falling, sometimes through thick snow in heavy boots until the cold darkness passes. Whichever situation comes along, much of this is mental and emotional and there is no instruction manual for how to do this. I have also learned that the dynamic of age, and individual event dynamics, the people involved and such, for those it changes how we deal with getting through losses and recovering back to some sort of equilibrium.

    Families in the ideal, should support one another through these times. A lot of the time you hear the bad stories where this doesn’t happen. In my family, I suspect we are average. Maybe about a 4.5 on the scale of 1-10.

    Back to communication issues – it’s true that this is the number one problem with humans. They do not do communication well.

    The question is whether I should continue to try to reach out, or should I just stop trying and see what happens.

    Thanksgiving was one of the “try and see” times, and a few people did reach out – I actually did not intentionally not reach out, it was that I was flat-out working to prepare for guests so that we could give them a wonderful experience – as much as we could.

    So, it leaves me with a conundrum. Major decisions to make. Some of this does affect my day to day and it is very important that I do keep connections and do keep trying to communicate with certain of these people who are my family. Others, not so much, I guess. I love them. They are my family. I must face the reality that the feelings are not mutual. That’s it.