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.

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.

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 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.

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…

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!