On humor and non-linear thinking

7/13/21 by Carlos G.

I believe evolution gave us humor as a pleasurable hint to fight against linear thinking.

So, what is humor and what does it teach?

The essence of what makes us laugh is always an inoffensive and unexpected reaction towards what would otherwise have been a completely ordinary and predictable event: I remember watching a group of teenagers throwing eggs at people on the street, I really cracked up when what appeared to be a Type-A dude shrank and hid behind his girlfriend to avoid getting hit, literally the last thing I thought would happen.

I am sure there are more aspects to whatever makes us have a spontaneous, sincere laugh. There is curiosity, which rushes in with a life of its own opening the door for future analysis of the situation. Closely behind comes a liberating feeling of “what-the-hell-was-i-expecting”, now that curiosity jump-started our perception, we can clearly see how others feel and behave. It’s like a parallel universe which was always there just made itself visible. Deep inside we understand this reaction, in that universe we have a shared sense of weirdness and, for a laugh´s length, we realize that conventional thinking was a delusion.

And why is linear thinking dangerous?

Whatever we did yesterday took us where we are today, right? Well, kind of. I believe there are not that many events in our life which truly shifted our path: the time you went straight to talk to the girl you liked, the time you picked a label and believed it was your identity, the time you said no more of this shit. A couple of events that at inception were inoffensive and unexpected have truly been of massive influence in your life.

The essence of the future does not lie in a bunch of ordinary and predictable events adjusted for inflation. Dull assumptions and a blind belief in consensus can be converted into a very complicated financial model, which ends up telling us nothing. But flat-out weirdness is also not the answer, just like good comedy, the future is best if planned, strategized, and led with intensity.

Take the 364 extraordinary days in the life of a Thanksgiving Turkey: day after day living in the back yard, pampered, worry-less, what a wonderful future…forecasted to perpetuity. Needless to say, the poor bird did not make it to day 365. That´s why linear thinking is dangerous.