What if Laughter IS the Answer?

Something weird has happened in the last week. Something that, had I anticipated its possibility, I would have expected to occur before now – like in the 1990s.

So here it is: I have become a Gilbert Gottfried fan.

Here’s a brief summary of how this occurred. I have become a podcast junkie. (Don’t judge me. Or if you do, at least have the decency not to do it from behind the same device you use to binge-watch 6 seasons of anything produced on the CW.) The one I have been focused on lately is The Moment with Brian Koppelman which I found through The Tim Ferriss Show. Recently, I was listening to Brian Koppelman’s interview with Amy Schumer in which they mentioned a previous episode featuring Gilbert Gottfried. And I was like, ew. Though I didn’t know why. If someone had asked me, “Who is Gilbert Gottfried?” a few days ago I would have said, “You know, the comedian with the annoying voice who plays the parrot in Aladdin and voices the AFLAC duck. Well, we was the AFLAC duck before the company fired him for…something offensive. I can’t remember what.”

But I’m a HUGE FAN of Amy Schumer. So I decided, after finishing with her episode, I would look for the one with Gilbert Gottfried. But I couldn’t find it on iTunes. So I Googled it and finally found it on ESPN radio of all places. So there I was, sitting at my desk, listening to a podcast with someone I didn’t think I liked on a radio station that I would not ordinarily listen to on purpose. 

You know, really challenging the boundaries of my comfort zone.

I pushed play expecting that it wouldn’t hold my interest for more than 10 minutes and found myself laughing…tears rolling down my face laughing…in about half that time. Sometimes I was laughing at what was said, but just as often I was laughing because Brian Koppelman and Gilbert Gotfried were laughing so hard. Every once in a while, the laughter would last a little longer than is considered appropriate in polite company (which was fine because there was nothing polite about it) and it was literally contagious. I would laugh at the laughter. And then I would laugh at that laughter too. 

It was exactly like what happens when you start laughing at church, except that I was alone so there was no one in front of me to turn around a glare at my joy. 

Long story, short…Gottfried has his own podcast, Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast, on which he shares, along with his generous laughter, stories about old Hollywood, and hilarious impressions with his guests (sometimes of his guests) who share the same in return. The laughter is my favorite part – because it makes me feel awake and full of ideas. After I listen to one of his podcasts, I am ready to work…99% of the time. Yesterday, I would have been ready to work were it not for a sick child. (I don’t know how Erma Bombeck did it.) But the day of not writing became a day of productive thinking about these two questions:

Why do I find him funny? And how is it helping me write?

It felt like it was a pretty good use of time because if I could answer these two questions well enough, I’d have discovered a secret…THE SECRET…to how one finds inspiration.

I quickly figured out that the first question was a waste of time. It’s as elusive as why some people like Picasso and others prefer Monet. In many respects, humor is an art and, thus, subjective…despite the assertion by some male comics that “women aren’t funny”, the allegation by uptight people that Amy Schumer is “gross”, or the declaration by “the Greatest Generation” that comedy died with Bob Hope. No one gets to decide what’s funny for everyone.

Not even Lorne Michaels.

But the second question was important because its answer might just hold the key to unlocking my own creative process.

How is the podcast helping me write?

It didn’t come to me all at once…more like in fits and starts while I was doing dishes or folding laundry or reading or listening to other podcasts. I would remember something and then run through the house chanting it to myself until I could get to a piece of paper and a pencil. This went on all day until I finally sat down and looked at my scribbles trying to make sense of it.  

First, I remembered hearing B.J. Novak break down his writing “process” on Tim Ferriss.  It essentially consists of him doing whatever it took -- eating, walking, reading, meditating, whatever -- to put himself into a “really good mood” so that he can sit down and begin creating. This, along with Jon Hamburg’s process (discussed on The Moment) which is simply walking around NYC “until he feels special enough to write” whatever it is that he needs to write. These ideas resonate with me. I recognize in myself the need to achieve a particular state of mind before I’m ready to create.

Secondly, I recently learned the ancient definition of the word humor while reading Brainpickings. I now, of course, can’t find the article which meant I had to look it up in the dictionary and hope that it would be there. This is what I found:

HUMORn. 1. the quality of being amusing;
    2. a mood or state of mind
v. to indulge or accommodate

Yeah – I got that. But then THIS:

Historical:each of the four chief fluids of the body (blood, phlegm, yellow bile [choler], and black bile [melancholy]) that were thought to determine a person's physical and mental qualities by the relative proportions in which they were present.

So this is where the phrase “in good humor” must have originated. It doesn’t mean that someone is laughing a lot, it means that all of one’s bodily fluids are balanced out so that they can function amongst the living. Being “of good humor” or having a “good sense of humor” has evolved to mean that someone can appreciate that which is funny.  Maybe that’s because people are in their best relative states of mind immediately after a bout of laughter.

Finally, today, I watched a TED talk by Shawn Achor in which he discussed the relationship between work success and happiness. He specifically mentioned the neurotransmitter dopamine and its impact on the brain. You should watch it yourself, but the gist is that you can give yourself a happiness advantage in whatever your particular pursuit, if you can make yourself happy before getting down to business. This flips the script on the conventional wisdom that happiness is the result of success…which is a constantly moving target…which makes happiness unattainable.

So I wondered about laughter. I’m pretty happy after I laugh. I wonder if that’s why I’m able to write after I listen to Gilbert Gottfried.

Is it possible that humor is both art AND science?

I Googled “laughter and dopamine” and discovered that laughter, like general happiness, also triggers a dopamine response. Here is my layperson’s summary:

From a physical standpoint, laughter is associated with improved immune function and cardiovascular health, reduced stress and anxiety, and increased tolerance for pain. That’s right… laughing makes you physically healthier than those with no sense of humor and, apparently, if you can figure out a way to laugh when you are in pain, it might hurt less.

Laughter also activates the reward center of the brain that releases dopamine, our body’s natural mood elevator. When we laugh, our brain releases an appropriate amount of dopamine to create a natural sense of euphoria. (Drugs also cause the brain to release dopamine, but in inappropriate amounts which cause brain damage, dependence, court-ordered rehab, and, in some cases, death.)

But wait…THERE IS MORE. In his TED talk, Shawn Achor said that dopamine has not one but TWO effects on the brain. It not only elevates your mood, it also turns on all the learning centers in your brain. It allows you to adapt to the world…to process information…differently. With your brain “at positive” you are actually more intelligent, more creative, more energetic…all the things B.J Novak needs to be “in a good mood” or Jon Hamburg needs to “feel special” or I need to conquer words each day.

But there is potential here that extends beyond its impact on individual happiness and success. What could a consistent diet of laughter do for the world? What if we didn’t take ourselves so damn seriously all the time?

Think of an example of a poorly run organization (school, business, club, agency, committee, industry…you’re choice) – the worst that you can think of – and ask yourself what could happen if humor…a fluid…a lubricating elixir with the power to heal us in every imaginable way…could be injected into the veins of that system. What could be possible if everyone just took some time to make themselves laugh?